The Dead, 1987

John Huston's final film THE DEAD from 1987, details with loving attention to detail a Christmas dinner at the house of two spinster well-to-do sisters and their niece in turn-of-the-century Ireland, attended by friends and family. Among the visiting attendees are the sisters' nephew Gabriel Conroy and his wife Greta. The evening's reminiscences bring up melancholy memories for Greta concerning her first, long-lost love when she was a girl in rural Galway. Her recounting of this tragic love to Gabriel brings him to an epiphany: he learns how little he knows about his wife whom he loves dearly. 

"Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world ... Snow is falling. Falling in that lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lies buried. Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead".

John Huston's last film is a labor of love at several levels: an adaptation of one of the greatest pieces of English-language literature by one of Huston's favorite authors, James Joyce; a love letter to Ireland where he lived and his children grew up; and the chance to work with his screenwriter son Tony and his actress daughter Anjelica. Peter Viertel in his engaging memoir describes a typical weekend at the Huston home St Clerans in Galway (its a luxury hotel now) where Huston, when not away directing, living the life of the Irish country squire with his dogs and shooting and hunting ....Huston was - like Italy's Vittorio De Sica - one of those larger than life directors who gambled and hunted and acted in movies as varied as CHINATOWN, THE CARDINAL and utter tosh like DE SADE (Trash label) where he seemed to be enjoying himself hugely, as usual .... Viertel's novel  "White Hunter Black Heart" (which was filmed by Clint Eastwood) was about Huston filming THE AFRICAN QUEEN...

I was obsessed about Huston's THE MISFITS for a long time, I love his HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON (Huston label) and those subsequent films THE UNFORGIVEN, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, FAT CITY and of course his '40s triumphs like THE MALTESE FALCON and his early '50s oddities like THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, MOULIN ROUGE and MOBY DICK. Huston was such a maverick that his later oddities like THE KREMLIN LETTER in '69 are also worth seeking out. It was great to see him in person for the launch of FAT CITY at the NFT in 1972. THE DEAD set as it is on the 6th of January, is an ideal film for this time of year ...

As my friend Martin Bradley sets the scene: THE DEAD takes place on the Feast of the Epiphany in the Dublin of 1904. It is confined, largely, to one setting, the home of the Morkan sisters, and not a great deal happens in conventional 'dramatic' terms. They entertain their guests; there is singing, dancing, recitations and much small talk but watching this film you can't imagine anywhere else you would rather be than in this company.

Finally, of course, it is 'about' much, much more. It is about love, loss and regret, those stable mainstays of great drama. In the film's closing scenes the tenor Bartell D'Arcy (Frank Patterson) sings a song, 'The Lass of Aughrim' which conjures up in the mind of Gretta (Anjelica Huston) wife of Gabriel (Donal McCann) the ghost of her first and probably greatest love, a boy who died in all certainty of a broken heart at the age of seventeen, and suddenly Gabriel realises he has never really known his wife and that he has not been the great love of her life after all. Emotionally, these scenes are incredibly powerful, firstly as Gretta recounts the circumstances of her lover's death and then as the voice in Gabriel's head sums up his own feelings. This is great cinema, the monologues superbly delivered by Huston and McCann.

But then all the performances are extraordinary. This is ensemble playing of the highest order. Added poignancy is to be had, of course, from the knowledge that Huston himself was close to death when he made this film which seems to me the culmination of his life's work. Death may well be its central theme but viewing this film is a life-enhancing experience. 

There is also the great Marie Kean as Freddie Malins' waspish mother, while Donal Donnelly plays her son Freddie, the amiable drunk (both right), and the two sisters are ideally played by Helena Carroll and Cathleen Delaney; the cast also includes Dan O'Herlihy, Sean McClory and Kate O'Toole. Its a wonderful film that will leave you seeking out James Joyce's "Dubliners" collection of stories.

I shall soon be reporting on Huston's 1963 FREUD, long unseen, with Montgomery Clift and Susannah York, when discussing Montgomery Clift soon.

Irish quartet

I have done threads on London and Paris (see labels) but how about Dublin in the 1960s? Look, there's Agnes Browne selling her fruit at her market stall, over there gay bus conductor Albert Byrne is entertaining his passengers -  while Edna O'Brien's country girls Kate and Baba (GIRL WITH GREEN EYES) are having a great time and looking for romance. A 1930s Ireland is also conjured up in the film THE FIELD - and of course the film of that great play DANCING AT LUGHNASA where Meryl Streep leads a great ensemble. Let's look at a few of these.  At least THE GIRL WITH GREEN EYES (Ireland label) was made in the '60s and has that real Dublin vibe - there is something skewered in those colorful '90s recreations .... (also in the '60s films like YOUNG CASSIDY, ULYSSES, LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS, SINFUL DAVEY were filmed there, as well as 1959's SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL ... also in the '60s RYAN'S DAUGHTER in Kerry and my favourite I WAS HAPPY HERE in Clare.)

Anjelica Huston's AGNES BROWNE (1999) is an earlier incarnation of Brendan O'Carroll's series MRS BROWNE'S BOYS and his book "The Mammy". It is not really a realistic picture of a Dublin widow bringing up 7 children in the 1960s. The comic tone is set from the start as Mrs Browne and her friend arrive at the benefits office to claim her widow's pension. The harrassed assistant asks her when her husband died, to which Agnes replies "ten past four" - that day, she has not even got the death certificate yet! She therefore has to go to the local loan shark - a younger Ray Winstone with a dreadful accent - for ready cash. Then there is the funeral mix up with several coffins arriving at the same time and they are at the wrong graveside!

Agnes though copes well, she does not seem bothered by the loss of her husband, she and her best friend Marion (Marion O'Dwyer) cope with life's ups and downs, out drinking on a Friday night, and they have a day at the seaside but then Marion too is taken from her by cancer .... but there is that French baker who has eyes for Agnes and you just know it will all end ok for her, as her kids run riot at the swanky Gresham Hotel and one of them falls foul of the loan shark, but they club together to buy her that blue dress for her first date with the French guy - and then Tom Jones pops up as himself (this in 1999) and saves the day too as we end with Agnes and her brood watching him as his 1967 self  in concert [its Cliff Richard in the book!]. 

Angelica (marvellous is so many things from THE GRIFTERS to her father's THE DEAD - another great Irisih film) directs all this with a sure touch - she of course spent a lot of time in Ireland growing up partly at her father's pile in Galway - but she is perhaps a tad too glamorous for a harrassed mother of seven? Author Brendan O'Carroll (who plays Mrs Browne in his successful tv series) pops up too in various moments as the local drunk. So really I suppose it is great fun really but don't expect realism.

It's back to 1963 Dublin for Albert Finney's turn - as the blurb says:

"A touching and gentle tale of self-discovery and expression, A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (1994) features a stellar cast of British acting talent.

Dublin 1963. Middle-aged bus conductor Alfred Byrne passes the day cheerily entertaining his passengers with passionate recitals of Oscar Wilde's poetry. However, Alfred is secretely living a desperately unhappy life - he's gay, deeply closeted and in love with his colleague, bus driver Robbie (Rufus Sewell) whom he adores from a distance.

When he meets an enchanting young passenger Adele (Tara Fitzgerald) Alfie is inspired to mount a production of Wilde's SALOME with Adele as the lead. With the rest of the cast filled out by his regulars, including a gruff butcher (Michael Gambon), he sets out to produce Wilde's controversial play - but not everyone is pleased with the choice. With production woes piling on, Alfie is forced to overcome his fears and be happy with who he is".

Albert (TOM JONES in 1963) goes at it full tilt - like David Hemmings he is an actor with surely no vanity at all - he is good at playing this man who is desperate to create beautiful things in a grey, humdrum world which just doesn't understand him. But there is something inherently comic in this drama as Michael Gambon and Brenda Fricker comically play those bigots who conspire against him - the scene when they try to break into his locked room is a scream. She as his sister does not like the spaghetti he cooks for her and she is worred where his hands have been - Albie's problem is that they have not been anywhere! In desperation, after he visits Adele's room and finds her in the throes of passion, he gets dressed up as Oscar Wilde with a green carnation to visit a gay bar where the guy he picks up leads him into an ambush, as the police are called. David Kelly (RIP label) is good too as his only friend; the great Anna Manahan (ME MAMMY and Mrs Ceadogan in THE IRISH R.M. and THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE) is one of the bus passengers. It all ends on a rather fairytale note as the bigots are defeated, his bus passengers stand by him, as does Rufus Sewell as the driver who likes him. It should be an engrossing drama but again, as in AGNES BROWNE, the comedy elements make it all rather risible. Directed by one Suri Krishnamma and written by Barry Devlin. Certainly an oddity then ... [famously hetero Finney (romanced Audrey, married Anouk Aimee, etc) does not disgrace himself here - unllike Burton and Harrison in the awful STAIRCASE, 1969].

Back presumably to the 1930s for THE FIELD - Jim Sheridan's 1990 film of John B. Keane's play. I have to declare an interest here, as John B Keane is from my home town in Kerry, and his family still run his famous pub. I was drinking there last year. I and my family knew him, as we did that other well known Irish writer Bryan McMahon. THE FIELD is a gripping drama but again for me something odd happens - it just seems to go way over the top so eventually the grim storyline becomes almost funny, like something out of Monty Python - as the misery piles on. By the climax when the cattle go over the cliff and the Lear-like Bull McCabe (Richard Harris) seems to have gone mad, one is almost laughing.

The cast again go at it full tilt: Brenda Fricker (again) as the almost silent wife, John Hurt as the village idiot type (think John Mills in RYAN'S DAUGHTER), Sean Bean, Frances Tomelty as the widow who wants to sell the field, which McCabe has nourished for years - and Tom Berenger as the visiting Yank who wants to buy it - leading to if not Greek Tragedy then Irish Tragedy all round ....again the blurb says: "Bull" McCabe's family has farmed a field for generations, sacrificing endlessly for the sake of the land. And when the widow who owns the field decides to sell the field in a public auction, McCabe knows that he must own it. But while no one in the village would dare bid against him, an American with deep pockets decides that he needs the field to build a highway. The Bull and his son decide to convince the American to give up bidding on the field, but things go horribly wrong".  This is a look at a more vicious reality of the rural Ireland behind the whimsy of THE QUIET MAN.

Here's an odd one, THE LAST SEPTEMBER, a 1999 film which I had never heard of, it can't have played in London and one can see why - directed by stage director Deborah Warner, hence a fatal lack of pace: talk of languid, langorous tedium set in a long summer in 1920 in County Cork on one of those Anglo-Irish estates which seems to have seen better days. Presided over by Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith with their niece Lois (Keeley Hawes) and visiting guests including Fiona Shaw and Jane Birkin - an odd choice here.  
During those long scenes when nothing seems to be happening one remembers how more animated Smith and Gambon were in GOSFORD PARK and that Smith and Birkin were both much more fun in EVIL UNDER THE SUN ... Pre-DR WHO David Tennant is the army officer in love with Lois who is drawn to and sheltering a rebel hiding in the old mill who has killed a black-and-tan made to kneel naked before him - and now Tennant too is exploring the old mill as another shot rings out ... Its all from an Elizabeth Bowen novel, rather like a William Trevor story, and the politics of the time will be difficult to comprehend for those unfamiliar with history - no laughs here though.