Contemporary Irish Filmmakers ' I Contemporary Irish Writers and Filmmakers General Series E.ditor: Eugene O'Brien, Head of English Department, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. Titles in the series: Seamus Heaney: Creating lrelands of the Mind by Eugene O'Brien (Mary Immaculate College, Limerick) Brian Friel: Decoding the Language of the Tribe by T ony Corbett Jim Sheridan: Framing the Nation by Ruth Barton (University College Dublin) John Banville: Exploring Fictions by Derek Hand (Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology) William Trevor: Re-imagining Ireland by Mary Fitzgerald-Hoyt (Siena College, New York) Conor McPherson: Imagining Mischief by Gerald Wood (Carson-Newman College, Tennessee) Forthcoming: Roddy l!>oyle by Dermot McCarthy Neil Jordan by Emer Rockett and Kevin Rockett Jennifer Johnston by Shawn O'Hare Brian Moore by Philip O'Neill Maeve Binchy by Kathy Cremin John McGahern by Eamonn Maher Colm Toibin by Declan Kiely Contemporary Irish Filmmakers Jim Sheridan Framing the Nation Ruth Barton The Liffey Press fjff~he pressy Published by The Liffey Press 307 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3, Ireland www.theliffeypress.com © 2002 Ruth Barton A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1-904148-05-0 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, without written permission of the publisher. Such written permission must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature. Requests for permission should be directed to: The Liffey Press, 307 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3, Ireland. Front cover photograph © Amelia Stein Reproduced with the kind permission of the Irish Film Archive of the Film Institute of Ireland Printed in the Republic of Ireland by Colorman Ltd. Contents About the Author .......................................................................................... vi Series Introduction ...................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... ix Chronology..................................................................................................... xi Introduction .................................................................. I Chapter One My Left Foot ( 1989): The Collision with Modernity ............... 15 Chapter Two The Field ( 1990): Revising History .............................................. 39 Chapter Three In the Name of the Father ( 1993): A Political Cinemal ........... 63 Chapter Four The Boxer ( 1997): The Performance of Peace ......................... 99 Chapter Five Into the West ( 1992): The Mythic Family ................................ 123 Interview with Jim Sheridan .................................................................. 139 Filmography ............................................................................................... 155 References ................................................................................................. 159 About the Author Ruth Barton is IRCHSS (Irish Research Council for the Hu­ manities and Social Sciences) post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Film Studies, University College Dublin. Her research interests include British and Irish cinema and she is currently working on a book entitled Irish National Cinema to be published by Routledge. Series Introduction Given the amount of study that the topic of Irish writing, and increasingly Irish film, has generated, perhaps the first task of a series entitled Contemporary Irish Writers and Film­ makers is to justify its existence in a time of diminishing rain­ forests. As Declan Kiberd's Irish Classics has shown, Ireland has produced a great variety of writers who have influenced indigenous, and indeed, world culture, and there are innumerable books devoted to the study of the works of Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. These writers spoke out of a particular Irish culture, and also transcended that culture to speak to the Anglophone world, and beyond. Ireland, however, has undergone a paradigm shift in the last twenty years. Economically, politically and culturally, it is a vastly different place to the Ireland of Yeats and Joyce. In the light of the fundamentally altered nature of.the Diasporic experience, definitions of lrishness and of identity are being rewritten in a more positive light. Irish people now emigrate to well-paid jobs, working in high rise offices in London and New York, a far cry from previous generations whose hard physical labour built those self-same offices. At the same time, the new-found wealth at home has been comple­ mented by a growing multiculturalism, challenging perspec­ tives on identity like never before. viii Series Introduction Modes and worldviews inherited from the past no longer seem adequate to describe an increasingly cosmopolitan and complex society. This is the void which Contemporary Irish Writers and Filmmakers hopes to fill by providing an exami­ nation of the state of contemporary cultural Ireland through an analysis of its writers and filmmakers. The role of the aesthetic in the shaping of attitudes and opinions cannot be understated and these books will at­ tempt to understand the transformative potential of the work of the artist in the context of the ongoing redefinition of society and culture. The current proliferation of writers and filmmakers of the highest quality can be taken as an in­ dex of the growing confidence of this society, and in the de­ sire to enunciate that confidence. However, as Luke Gib­ bons has put it: "a people has not found its voice until it has expressed itself, not only in a body of creative works, but also in a body of critical works," and Contemporary Irish Writers and Filmmakers is part of such an attempt to find that voice. Aimed at the student and general reader alike, this series will analyse and examine the major texts, themes and topics that have been addressed by these present-day voices. At another level, each book will trace the effect of a specific artist on the mindset of Irish people. lt is hoped that this series will encourage discussion and debate about issues that have engaged the writers and film­ makers who enunciate, and transform, contemporary Irish culture. lt is further hoped that the series will play its part in enabling our continuing participation in the great humanistic project of understanding ourselves and others. Eugene O'Brien Department of English Mary Immaculate College University of Limerick Acknowledgements I would like to thank Jim Sheridan for his co-operation with this book. I am especially grateful to Niamh Nolan of Hell's Kitchen and Renate Adamidov of the East of Harlem produc­ tion office for their help with specific details. My thanks, too, to my colleagues at the Centre for Film Studies, UCD, Leon Conway, Margaret Brindley, T ony Fitzmaurice, Gerardine Meaney, Harvey O'Brien and also Susanne Bach for help and support. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Grainne Humphries at the Film Institute of Ireland and Tony Deegan at RTE radio in obtaining research materials; also the help of the staff of the libraries of the British Film Insti­ tute, the Film Institute of Ireland and University College Dublin. Eugene O'Brien and Brian Langan have contributed to this book in many ways and with much good will, and I am indebted to them for that. Most particularly, thank you to Willie, Conal, Eoin and Paddy for putting up with it all. This book was written under the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences post-doctoral re­ search fellowship scheme. Material from The Gay Byrne Show is reproduced with kind permission of RTE and Jim Sheridan. For Willie, Canal, Eoin and Paddy Chronology 1949 Jim Sheridan born in Dublin on 6 February. The eldest of seven children, his family lives in Seville Place, a working-class area on Dublin's Northside. 1957 Fianna Fail is elected in the general election and remains in power until 1973. 1958 Publication of T.K. Whitaker's Economic Development, now widely associated with the beginning of the modernisation and industrialisation of Irish society. 1959 Seam Lemass becomes T aoiseach (prime minister) with Eamon de Valera elected President. 1961 RTE television begins broadcasting on New Year's Eve. 1967 Death of Frankie, Sheridan's younger brother, at the age of eleven; Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association is founded. 1972 Sheridan graduates from UCD; marries Fran; their first child, Naomi, is born; on 30 January, thirteen people taking part in a civil rights march are killed in Derry by the British Army in what becomes known as Bloody Sunday. 1973-74 Tours Ireland with Neil Jordan and their "Children's T Company." xii jim Sheridan 1973 Wins the Macauley Fellowship in playwriting, the first time it has been awarded since Brian Friel won it in 1962. 1974 Bombs explode in Dublin and Monaghan, the eventual death toll is 33; on 5 October, two PIRA bombs explode without warning in Guildford killing five people and injuring 54; on 21 November, 19 people are killed and 182 injured in two pub bombs in Birmingham also planted by the PIRA; the "Guildford Four", "Maguire Seven" and "Birmingham Six" are arrested and eventually tried and convicted for bombing and conspiring with the "bombers". 1976 Birth of Sheridan's daughter, Kirsten, now a filmmaker. 1977 The "Dirty Protest" starts in