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.