Irish Films 2

The small Irish-Jewish community has produced few internationally-known figures, although at least one became a successful film director. Dublin-born Norman Cohen (1936-1983) who died aged 47 in California, was the director of a series of soft-porn B-Movies such as Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) which nonetheless helped to define the zeitgeist of the Swinging Sixties in Britain. Perhaps another acclaimed cineaste is on the horizon….

Within a few hundred meters of where I live in Paris there stands the Irish College in Paris (Centre Culturel Irlandais ) founded in 1578. This is situated – where else – in the Rue des Irlandais, a street which itself does not appear to have changed much since the 16th Century - an admirable setting for a scene from Les Miserables. Irish Government–funded, from time to time they put on cultural events with an Irish slant, open to the public. Recently I noted that they were showing an Irish film, and since it was both free and a short walk – I couldn’t resist. And the Director no less would be present in person – and he had a name which I recognized – none other than Lenny Abrahamson, scion of two well-known Dublin families: Lenny’s grandfathers were respectively a respected professor of medicine, and the well-loved proprietor of one of Dublin’s last Kosher butchers.

The film “Adam & Paul” described a day in the life of two drug addicts in North Dublin. Paul was played by a wonderful young actor, Tom Murphy, already a winner of the Theatre’s greatest laurel, a Tony Award, who died tragically in his mid-thirties last October (2007). The screen writer was Mark O’Halloran who played Adam. The dialogue was bleakly realistic – I suppose – the first three words (or so) of the script being “F***! I’m f***ing f***ed” showing at least that this expletive is capable of great dramatic flexibility. Nevertheless, as Abrahamson explained in his post-screening talk, the authenticity was vouched for by several denizens of the North Dublin suburbs, who gave the film – which inevitably has a tragic ending – their thumbs-up. This first full-length film of Abrahamson’s has won several awards, and successfully runs the gamut from despairing misery to high comedy. My favourite scene has the pair failing to get a foreign gentleman to move along a public bench, whereupon they accuse him of being a “f***ing Romanian”. Outraged, he ripostes that he is a “f***ing Bulgarian”. In fact, this great comic actor is indeed a Romanian, and in real life the Romanian Minister of Culture, no less.

Thus encouraged by this sample of the Abrahamson oeuvre, I was moved to spend hard cash on his next effort, “Garage”, which was given full distribution in Paris. I was not disappointed. The same bleakness, the slowness of action, the hopelessness, … Well, it’s not exactly a laugh a minute. But this story of a somewhat inadequate but ultimately good man whose whole world is a two-pump petrol shack in the Irish countryside does indeed capture a mood which is not easily forgotten.

And that is the sign of a potentially great director.

Irish Films I

What is it about Ireland that makes the Irish so artistic? Is it the misty climate, the soft perpetual drizzle, the sulking hills, the green expanses leading to – there you see, I'm doing it now. But the number of “English” poets and dramatists who are really Irish is staggering. And this phenomenon continues into the modern age through the media of film and television, with Irish films and actors continuing to attract international acclaim. As I write,the Irish-Jewish actor Daniel Day-Lewis has just received a BAFTA, and looks set to win yet another Oscar (to add to that of 1993) in the forthcoming Academy Award ceremonies.

The 1997 Irish film I Went Down is arguably Ireland's most successful movie (I quote: A charming and talkatively witty picture, I Went Down has already become Ireland's biggest grossing domestic movie of all time ). This film holds an especial place in my affections, since I may modestly claim to have played a “starring” role in it. The story involves Irish gangsters driving from Dublin to Cork to capture a rival, and bring him back to the Boss in Dublin. Where did I come in? Well, they tie the hostage up in a hotel bedroom and leave him there for the evening, leading to the following hilarious scene (again I quote from the review)

“Other moments, such as a tied up hostage accidentally dropping the remote control -- thus forever leaving the TV on a droll algebra lesson program -- .“

I suppose you have guessed that it is yours truly who is presenting the TV algebra lesson! Of course, I was totally unaware – until the film was broadcast on BBC2 – that they had used my Open University broadcast that way, and was torn between annoyance and amusement. The latter prevailed.

This was my small contribution to Irish cinematographic history.