Margaret Canning in today’s Irish News has an interesting interview with playwright Gary Mitchell, author of many dramas on loyalists. In the wake of the film Hunger winning the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Mitchell argues that there is no parity of esteem when it comes to the cinematic treatment of loyalists and republicans; republicans will always be considered more news worthy. (Hunger deals with the death of IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands.)
Says Mitchell: “I have been writing plays, films and scripts for TV and films for years and the process always reaches the same conclusion. Someone says: “It would be much better if it was about Catholics. They have a cause.” I think they think no-one understands loyalists – their story is too complicated and nobody cares.
“It seems there is a movie about nationalists practically every day. Some of them are very good, though … But most are blatantly one-sided. I have seen too many films about the IRA and the nationalist side of things. There are not enough being made from our perspective.”
Mitchell goes on to say that attempts to pitch films about loyalism or Protestants often come to nothing: “Trying to get the BBC or Channel 4 interested in the Protestant community, I don’t even bother at all as it’s impossible.”
Is there a bias against stories that deal explicitly with matters from a loyalist viewpoint? If there is, is that bias based on ideological or commercial grounds? Beyond that, how accurately do films which deal with republican politics and the IRA reflect the experiences of unarmed nationalists, many of whom suffered at the hands of republican violence as much as at the hands of state and loyalists? Have all the Trouble movies effectively skewered the last 30 years? Is film too blunt an instrument to deal with the nuances of what has happened here – far too blunt, perhaps, when one considers the astonishing way in which poetry and prose have confronted and dealt with the same era?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Troubles Movies
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
If the truth be told - which I hope it will in time - it might also show a truer picture of living in a republican area wherethe IRA were the lords and masters of all they ruled - and if anyone stepped outside their ideas they got a good beating at best a bullet in the back of the head at worst and their name blackened to boot.
I wonder if republicanism at it's worst and loyalism at it's worst aren't really the same thing. Generations of mal/ill nourishment, hate mongering (as in divide and conquer) along with the dumping of criminals and the insane into Ireland and the brutilisation of a people have produced a brute mentality that manifests itself in whatever guise ones chooses to operate under. While this may represent a truer picture, it's a truth that doesn't sell well. Basically, we're not nice people.
I couldn't agree more with you Bill - the people who have kept the poor down in so called working class areas across the North arcaled 'savioues' of the areas e hailed as so called saviours of the people - but unfortunately they have let their people down and the people have yet to realise it - drive up the Falls or the Shankill and the rot is there for all to see - where has all the money gone which has been poured into these areas - where is the help that these people need ? tough questions need to be asked of ther saviours!
Post a Comment