‘The Alternative Within the Mainstream’. A Critical Analysis of Some Recent Irish Films. Student: Nicholas Fennell. B.A. Student Number: 52152499 Degree: Masters (Research) in Media & Communications. Submitted To: Dublin City University Supervisor: Dr.Pat Brereton Submitted: February 2005 DECLARATION I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Master’s Degree (Research) in Media and Communications is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my own work. Signed: Al;cV»laj> 'fer^eW (Candidate) ID No: 52152499 Date: l<g/o2,/OS> Acknowledgements i would like to extend genuine thanks to my internal supervisor, Pat Brereton, for his expertise and guidance over die last two years. Having spent the last decade writing ‘journalese’ it took some serious work to get me up to scratch academia-wise (the journalese creeps back) and that it was done with such good humour and patience is much appreciated. Sincere thanks to Marcus Free and Darach Sanfey in Mar)' Immaculate College, both of whom provided sage advice and walls to bounce off. Thanks also to Michael Breen, Rosemary Day and Susan Liddy, also of MIC, who knew to leave well enough alone but were there if and when needed. But at the end of the day this is for my wife Cecily, who has had to put up with the mania, die mood swings, the highs, the lows and the to’s and the fro's....Fm back! List of contents PART ONE 1 Introduction 1-19 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Methodology 1.3 Literary Review 1.4 Aims and Objectives 1.5 Structure 2 Overview 1977 - 1993 / The Second Irish Film Board 1993 - 2 0 0 4 2 0 - 4 5 2.1 Introduction 2.2 T he‘Second Period’ 2.3 ‘Hollywood Here We Come’ 2.4 The Second Irish Film Board 2.5 Reactions to the Board’s Performance 2.6 Recent Developments 2.7 Conclusions PART TWO 3 Nationalist Imaginings and the European Influence 4 6 -8 5 3.1 Introduction 3.2 From the ‘First Wave’ to the International 3.3 The Impact of Angel and My Left Foot 3.4 The ‘First Wave’: Critical Content - Poitin, Exposure and Criminal Conversation 3.4.1 Formal Experimentation 3.5 ‘Anger Is an Energy’ - Crushproof 3.6 ‘Keeping it Real’ - Kevin Liddy’ s Horse and A Soldier’s Song 3.7 Country 3.8 Conclusions 4 American Imaginings 8 6 -1 2 5 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Ireland and the American Dream 4.3 ‘He’s Leaving Home’ - Drinking Crude and the ‘mythical’ male journey 4.4 Adopting the New Aesthetics - Intermission 4.5 Playing Them at their own Game - In America 4.6 Conclusion 5 Conclusions 126 -1 2 9 6 Bibliographies 6.1 Main Bibliography 6.2 Film & Video Film Bibliography APPENDICES A) Transcript of Author Interview with Kevin Liddy. June 8"12000. B) Transcript of Author Interview with Kevin Liddy. May 2011’ 2004 C) Transcript of Author Interview with Fintan Connolly. June 12,1,2004 Abstract The Alternative Within the Mainstream: A Critical Analysis of Some Recent Irish Films. By Nicholas Fennell B.A. Central to this thesis is the argument, espoused by a number of our contemporary critics, that the success o f Angel (Neil Jordan, 1982) and M y Left Foot (Jim Sheridan, 1989) resulted in a climate in which Irish filmmakers attempted to appeal to a more global market by adopting mainstream Hollywood formats at the expense o f the more experimental and socially critical cinema which had existed prior to 1987. While primarily concerned with Irish cinema since the re-establishment of the Film Board in 1993, the thesis sets out to investigate a number of different strategies which Irish filmmakers have adopted in an attempt to infiltrate a market which has become totally dominated by mainstream American studio films. Its main concern is the extent to which they may be said to have successfully achieved a balance of American style and Irish substance, in such a way that these films can be read as less defmably “American” and more specifically “Irish”. Each of the films proposed for examination is alternative, not in the classic sense o f "alternative’ or ‘counter-cinema’, but in the sense that they deviate from the more standardised approach of much Irish cinema. The thesis is divided into two main sections. The first section presents an overview of the Irish cinematic landscape from the emergence of the ‘First Wave’ to the present, referring both to the main body of literature essential to any undertaking o f a textual analysis o f Irish film and to the various social, political, economic and cultural changes which have characterised the last three decades, in order to provide the background information required to inform the individual readings which form the bulk of the second section. The second section is further sub-divided into two chapters. Chapter Three: Nationalist Imaginings and the European Influence, examines a number of indigenous films produced in the 70s and early 80s: Bob Quinn’s Poitin (1978), Kieran Hickey’s Exposure (1978) and Criminal Conversation (1980), in order to establish the key themes and tropes associated with the Irish ‘First Wave’ cinema, before moving on to readings of Paul Tickell’s Crashproof (1999) and Kevin Liddy’s Country (2000) - films which, I argue, are reminiscent of the ‘First Wave’ both aesthetically and thematically. The discussion is then developed into an examination of the difficulties of delivering an ‘Irish sensibility’ that succeeds critically and financially both at home and abroad. Chapter Four: ‘American Imaginings’, examines those directors who have attempted to tell ‘Irish’ stories within the ‘Hollywood’ format and provides critical readings of Owen McPolin’s Drinking Crude (1997), John Crowley’s Intermission (2003) and Jim Sheridan’s In America (2003), films which, I argue, primarily adopt specific Hollywood devices while attempting to imbue these generic structures with an Irish ‘flavour’. I shall argue that these ‘alternative’ strategies, out of economic necessity, occupy a middle ground which attempts to accommodate both the local and the global; focusing less on national identity politics and concerning themselves more with establishing an Irish character/dimension in terms of worldwide, cosmopolitan identity politics. ‘The Alternative Within the Mainstream’. A Critical Analysis of Some Recent Irish Films. PART ONE CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Introduction... Methodology... Literary Review ...A ims and Objectives... Structure... 1.1 Introduction. What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood - single or communal - that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. It is in the emergence of the interstices - the overlap and displacement of domains of difference - that the intersubjective and the collective experiences of nationness, community interest, or cultural value are negotiated (Bhabha, 1994:1/2). The choice is as to whether we become the consumers of images in a passive culture or whether we will be allowed to be the makers of images in an active culture in a democratic society. There is no way of evading that fundamental policy choice internationally. And there is a way out; it’s not achieved I think myself by simple exclusions, but by building up a base of productivity and images and accepting one great and exciting fact... that it is at the interstices between cultures that some of the most exciting things happen, but you cannot get to that point of pluralism and international tolerance if you have first been dominated so completely that you have no space in the marketplace (Higgins, 1994). The above quotations are taken from 1994, shortly after the establishment of the second Irish Film Board, and both authors are optimistic in pointing to the ‘interstices between cultures’ as being the key area where new and ‘exciting’ cultural re-imaginings and innovations are likely to occur over the following decade. 1 While Bhabha’s arguments are formulated in relation to cultures everywhere, Higgins is referring specifically to Ireland and the Irish film industry and, in essence, the cultural interstices which he refers to are those of indigenous Irish culture and the impact o f globalisation on the country throughout the 90s. The term ‘globalisation’ itself covers a variety o f different concepts: the rapid growth of international trade in finished goods and services, the growth of multi­ national businesses and enterprises which organize production across national borders and, most relevant for the purposes of this work; ‘the slow convergence of consumer tastes in different countries around certain global standards’ (Davis, 2003). In 1998 a series of surveys was conducted by Foreign Policy magazine, in conjunction with management consultants A.T.Keamey, to measure the level of globalisation of most of the countries in the world (defined for the purposes o f the surveys as integration into the world political and economic system). Ireland was ranked sixth. By the year 2000 it was ranked first and came in first again in 2001 (Corcoran, 2004: 197). This was primarily due to the turnaround in the Irish economy in the early to mid 90s, brought about by the emergence of the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’1, an appellation which was adopted by the Irish media as a blanket term to cover a variety of diverse social, economic and cultural changes within Irish society.