Irish Cinema Classics

Kursbeschreibung / -kommentar

The history of Irish cinema provides privileged access to an analysis of some of the major myths of Irish cultural identity as undercurrents of what might be called fault lines, basic tensions and divisions in Irish history, society, and culture. It will be interesting to see how the variety of different perspectives (especially those that suggest modernisation and globalisation) run counter to the stereotypes of a Catholic Gaelic Rural Ireland which dominated the country's (self-)image for the better part of the 20th century. The stereotypes of an Irish Ireland and a Gaelic way of life (together with those of the Stage Irishman and the Returned Yank) were, for example, taken up by, and reinforced in, John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952). In the 1990s, the process of the 'demythologisation of the West' has been carried on in the work of Jim Sheridan. More recently, Lenny Abrahamson and Mark O'Halloran have started to investigate the dark underbelly of the 'Celtic Tiger', the period of rapid economic growth between the late 1990s and early 2000s.

After a brief introduction to the history of Irish film/cinema I propose the following films (as well as the related literary source texts) for close scrutiny:

The Informer (1935; dir. John Ford; based on a novel by Liam O'Flaherty)
The Quiet Man (1952; dir. John Ford; based on a short story by Maurice Walsh)
The Dead (1987; dir. John Huston; based on a short story by James Joyce)
The Field (1990; dir. Jim Sheridan; based on a play by John Keane)
The Crying Game (1992; dir. Neil Jordan; original filmscript)
Adam & Paul (2004, dir. Lenny Abrahamson; original filmscript)