MCI Academic Journal #5: When Brendan Met Trudy

Before starting our next film in Ireland, Dr. Chown noted the success of the next film we were to watch, When Brendan Met Trudy, may have suffered for a lack of familiarity with the accent. But as it is that we have now spent a few days around the brogue, we'd be able to catch the lingo far easier than your average American audience.

The film is concerned with language, mightily so. Brendan interprets much his world through a distorted lens. A horrible teacher with little interest in his students, or frankly in his own pursuits, Brendan floats along in a miserable existence, punctuated with painful dinners with his family and brief soirees of cinema and classical music.

It's not until he meets the brash and riveting Trudy that Brendan starts to see a bigger world around him. The revelation of Trudy's occupation as a criminal further shakes Brendan's outlook.

The issue of class though is predominant, as Trudy's life of crime and her penchant for dangerous escapades increase the more Brendan's world becomes intertwined with her. Brendan does things that allow him to escape his life, his station in a sense. His world is very defined by his occupation, his economic standing, even his familial relations.

When Brendan rushed to Edward's aid during his arrest and possible deportation, Brendan is violating all that he is, all for the sake of the love of a Kerry Girl. He's not only slumming with the lower class, he's joining them hand-in-hand for the revolution. He barrels headlong into this new found freedom, a liberation of all that he was and even the past, a past which weighs heavily upon him. While Trudy steals the famine village display for profit, Brendan steals it to break away from the past; to shirk the old traditions and elope with the liberty afforded to the Irish with the Celtic Tiger.

Director Roddy Doyle loves to needle tradition and convention, and he does so with relish throughout the film. Brendan's conversation with the school headmaster is a fine example of this, not to mention the absurdity of the epilogues in the credits. But even with this particular affect, Doyle allows Brendan to slip slightly into convention again and again. Whether its his constant reference to old movies, repeating lines from it to express his wayward and confusing emotions, one can imagine even his inner monologues are rife with John Wayne-isms. This backward-looking view is completely Irish, a near obsession with the past, and slavish love of the historical. How can Doyle argue a progressive view for the modern Irishmen yet allow his protagonist to lapse into the traditional tropes of the past?

The film is interesting, and provides a number of questions for the modern student and eirephile, but the themes do become repetitive and incrementally absurd by the end of the film. Doyle rarely takes himself seriously, and this work is filled with irreverence, but you begin to wonder how many hackneyed movie line cliches can be crammed into one character's dialogue. It's not a bad picture, but it certainly is not one of Doyle's best.

MCI Academic Journal #4: The Commitments

After complaining about the lack of frank discussion about race and identity in The Crying Game, I get to watch The Commitments. Beyond Dr. Chown's assertion that Andrew Strong and I were possibly separated at birth, I may have worn my cassette version of the soundtrack to The Commitments out. (Gimme a break... it was 1991)

Amber had never seen the film, and before Strong's Deco Cuffe starts singing at the first practice, I smirked and said to her, "Wait until you hear his voice." Her jaw nearly dropped a few minutes later at Deco's soulful wail of love lost and the angst of being human.

While the music is essential to the film's plot and narrative, the nature and the culture of the music remains as essential to the critical reading of the film as the music itself. Jimmy, son of the working class with big dreams and clear vision, forms the band not as a reflection of American soul, but as in tune with the soul experience as the blacks in the States are. Jimmy is very aware of the working class roots of soul, and has a intuitive sense how soul relates completely to the Irish working class existence. Not only does he want to utilize the music to provide a way out, but Jimmy wants to make the music as authentic as possible. One of the more humorous scenes, he repeatedly answers the door, asking each hopeful for an influence, from Wings to Joan Baez, only to receive a door slam to the face. Jimmy wants The Commitments to be genuine, less Rodex knockoff of cheap imitation, but with a degree of authenticity not found in the flea market he peruses at the beginning. But as important as his desire for a truly Irish soul band, Jimmy understands the odd racial juxtaposition he seeks. When answering saxophonist Dean's query of provinciality and soul, is the band's whiteness a hindrance, Jimmy passionately retorts, "Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud."

The film claims "blackness" though no blacks are seen in the film, at least until Otis Redding's limousine happens upon a dejected Jimmy at the end. In fact, it argues its version of soul is not a version at all; it's simply soul. Sans blackness, the soul remains, and that the band's audience accesses the music so freely is fascinating.

Processing this critically, perhaps I can compare Irish culture (as presented in the film) with that of the Japanese, a foreign culture I am quite familiar with. In Japanese culture, sub culture is the predominant culture. Teens and young adults freely proclaim membership of fringe societies, from bōsōzoku (motorcycle punks) to burapan (hip-hop wannabes) and on and on. The groups have only a surface identification with the originators of the culture these groups are modeled upon. They lack the authenticity they so desperately seek, but the lack of authenticity allows them to continue to exists within the confines of Japanese culture.

A Japanese burapan can adopt an afro or dreadlocks and still move freely within society, despite the fringe elements of the hairstyle. But non-Japanese with the very same hairstyle, and in a sense, more ownership and legitimacy to do so, cannot operate as smoothly as the native can. In a sense, the non-native is more threatening to the social order. The native son who gets into James Brown and Curtis Mayfield, his obsession is seen as just a passing fantasy, a non-threatening phase he'll grow out of. A foreigner brings a contagion, a solidified background in what makes him or her foreign. These aspects of the culture cannot simply be assimilated, which heightens the threat to the dominant majority culture. So the question is, can an Irish lass sing hip hop and neo soul in cornrows without rejecting her Irish ethnicity, and conversely can a black Irishman do the same? If both are born in Derry, is one Irish and the other not, simply based on skin color?

I hope to have a clearer picture in just a few days.

MCI Academic Journal #3: The Crying Game

Most of the movies we're required to watch for the study abroad trip I either haven't seen or its been long enough since my last viewing to not remember enough of the film for further critical analysis required for these academic journals.

I don't remember seeing the The Crying Game; maybe it was because Gene Siskel ruined it for everybody. While the "secret" is a big moment, and for many Americans, the key moment of the film, (at least how Miramax marketed the picture), it is one of the lesser themes of importance for my interest. Sure the appearance of an unexpected tallywhacker is a shock to the puritanical American audience whose purile interest is piqued in a frank discussion of gender identity and sexual politics, but the adults in the room, different themes abound.

For me, how the film dealt with race was a far more interesting discussion. Having not set foot in the Emerald Isle, it is something I am sure I will observe and pay attention to. But most Americans view Ireland as a rather homogenous nation of gingers and rogues with brogues. The Crying Game skates upon the issue with such brevity, that I felt a bit cheated.

Sure there's a short conversation about cricket being a black man's game, but the film is wrapped up so much into the nature of man, that this smaller yet profoundly important topic is left behind, brushed aside with little discussion beyond the earlier parts of the film.

In one of these early scenes, Forrest Whitaker's soldier spits "you people" to his IRA captors, and my first instinct was to think about his kidnappers' race. But he was actually referring to the IRA as terrorists, lacking in the more complex ideas of race. There are further discussions of northern Ireland being a kind of backwards hillybilly-esque land of bumpkins, but beyond the discussion of cricket as a black man's game and Dil referred to as "the black girl," the honest discussion of race in Ireland was quite lacking.

Britain is shown to be far more diverse, and not just in sexual preference. The Metro hosts not only the gay and the transgendered, but a variety of ethnicities and races are shown dancing the night away to Boy George and Carroll Thompson.

I wrote of my time in Sweden that I was surprised by the relative diversity in Göteborg; whites, blacks, Latinos, all speaking perfect Swedish with an occasional foreign language thrown into the auditory mix. Heck, even the Chinese restaurant I ate at was run by actual Mandarin speaking Chinese. The world is too big for this not to be the case in Dublin, so I expect a far more cosmopolitan state of affairs than that of the film.

Granted, I don't know how many shacks in the wilderness I'll be holed up in with four IRA members, but you just never know.

MCI Academic Journal #2: My Left Foot

After just a few minutes, it's hard not to recognize My Left Foot as a very Irish picture. It is infused with its Irishness from the start, and not just the roster of Irish actors including Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, and Hugh O'Conor that scrolls by in the opening credits. Nor does it feel the need to inundate the viewer with reminders of such, leaving the understanding that the culture and country to be explored is Ireland without hammering the point home with characters constantly spouting "This is Ireland" and singing pub songs regaling us with our locale.

There's no other way to put this, but the film just ... breathes. The exposition is so minimal to start the film that I didn't discover Christy Brown had cerebral palsy until nearly an hour into the picture. Much of the early plot details this poor lump of a boy at the bottom of the stairs, never expounding upon the state of his condition.

But in a sense, that seems true to the cultural treatment of Brown's condition. Unspoken, a pox upon the House of Brown, a child to pitied, shunned, and neglected. After his mother has a heart attack, a neighbor angrily spits that there was Christy, "dumb at the bottom of the stairs."

My Left Foot is a series of collisions, between characters, classes, traditions, and emotions. For example, though played with subtlety, the question of masculinity may be the most interesting to me. A man of manual labor, defined by the amount of children he has, the quantity of drink he can consume, and the bread he brings home for his family, Christy's father Paddy struggles to cope with his lame son, unable to accept the state of his son's health or his capacity and thirst for knowledge. Though he feels responsible and diminished as a man for Christy's cerebral palsy, he buries these inadequacies or lashes out with a violent temper his wife and children, but never the source of his angst, his crippled son. Speaking to the Irish condition, this is his lot in life, and how dare he question it? Life is much easier when you accept the status you have and forgo your dreams of betterment and achievement.

Christy struggles his own definitions of masculinity, failing to woo the object of his youthful affections, and struggling prove his masculine worth to the unrequited love of his life, his therapist, Dr. Carr, despite his enormous success as an artist. The resolution of these collisions result in terrific explosions of emotions: from Paddy hoisting his son to his shoulder to announce proudly to the local watering hole, "This is Christy Brown. My son. Genius," to Christy's drunken outburst at a fine restaurant when Dr. Carr spurns his pronouncement of love which predicates the angry reaction of Peter, a man who feigned praise just moments before at the unveiling of Christy's work in his gallery.

A cultural theme present in both the buoyant The Quiet Man and the somber My Left Foot is the Irish notion of strongly defined gender roles. While Paddy and Christy struggle with their masculinity, society's expectation for the woman's dependence, especially financially, is an interesting trope to play with. While Mary Kate challenges her man's cowardice in avoiding conflict to recover her dowry, Mrs. Brown defiantly hides her small pittance of pounds in the chimney, knowing her husband would not only disapprove, but would provincially claim the money as the family breadwinner. When discovered, she boldly declares it not only as hers, but earmarked for Christy's wheelchair. Her recalcitrance defies not just her husband, but cultural norms, stowing money for the good of the lame son, while the rest of the family freezes in the bitter of winter without coal to burn. It was her money; she earned it, hence her difficulty in accepting the 800£ Christy has earned from his book sales.

My Left Foot is an excellent movie, and sure it leaves out the morose death by pork chop ending of the real world, but its deep reverence for the Irish culture exudes enough drama to earn a storied place in the Irish cinematic canon.

MCI Academic Journal #1: The Quiet Man

This summer, I (Theo) will be traveling to Ireland for a study abroad program with Northern Illinois Media and Culture in Ireland program, and as such, I have to keep both a cultural and academic journal. The program has graciously allowed to make these journal entries as part of the normal travel blog I shared with Amber.

We have been tasked with a number of films endemic of Irish experience in cinema. The first film I decided to view was The Quiet Man, much appreciation to Netflix for the quickly delivered copy. It's been years since I watched this moldy oldie on AMC or TCM, and frankly, I'd forgotten much of the plot or the visuals. As Ambi and I sat down to watch it, the garish visuals of the technicolor, the cartoonish flair in which the characters pranced across the screen.

Early on, I turned to her and queried, "This was made by John Ford?" As if to say, the guy who directed The Grapes of the Wrath and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance directed this dreadful schlock? Wow. It's as if he simply thumbed through a book of Irish stereotypes and tropes highlighting a few for the film. "Oh what's this, a short stocky drunk waxing poetic on the virtues of drink and lassies? Fine by me!" Perhaps I'm asking too much, looking for deeper meaning and modern sensibilities with an unduly harsh and critical eye.

At several points the predominant sexism in the movie nearly proves unbearable. When Sean drags Mary Kate kicking and screaming to her brother's estate to demand her dowry, I was left with mouth agape, shaking my head at the sheer brutality of the scene. Or the near rape on the consummation of their wedding vows, were viewers really OK with such violence?

Or even this brilliant exchange where the Duke produces the finest pick-up line the silver screen had ever seen:
SEAN: Well, some thing's a man doesn't get over so easy.
MARY KATE: Like what supposin'?
SEAN: Like the sight of a girl coming through the fields, and the sun on her hair, kneeling in church, face like a saint,
MARY KATE: Saint indeed!
SEAN: Now coming to a man's house to clean it for him
MARY KATE: But that was just my way of being a good Christian act
SEAN: I know it was Mary Kate Danaher and it was nice of ya.
MARY KATE: Not at all. (KISS!)

Really? Really? REALLY?!

But the thing that struck me most of all, even beyond the cartoonish caricatures of the Irish and their culture, was the near constant reminder of the film that this was supposed to be Ireland. "The Quiet Man" pleads with you believe it's Ireland, begs you to buy into its version of the Emerald Isle. I kept waiting for Barry Fitzgerald's little old leprechaun to tear off his fine black suit and scream at the top of his lungs, shillelagh swung wide and murky bottle of aged whiskey raised, "THIS IS IRELAND!"

Sure the movie fed the viewer enough exterior shots to believe it's Ireland, and according to a special feature on the DVD hosted by a gushing and effusive Leonard Maltin, Hollywood films at the time were generally shot on set, not location, and certainly not one as far-flung as Cong, Ireland. But in presenting the Eire here that the film does, I'm left with a snarky and bitter taste in my mouth. The boisterous pub songs don't start until Thornton establishes his Irish credentials via a father and grandfather well known in the magical quaint village known as Innisfree. Or the Irish toasts, at the wedding and the courting, darn those lads are good at their whimsical proverbs! Where else would I acquire such gems as the dire warning to Squire Red Will, "Two women in the house and one o' em a redhead." Tsk, tsk, indeed.

To know that a classic western like Rio Grande paid for this production makes me sad. I really wanted to enjoy the movie, I did. But there's just so much wrong with it, it makes it hard for my jaded sensibilities to believe it represents Ireland as desperately as it wishes.