Neil Jordan
The Crying Game
An ARTS ONE Lecture
by Brian McIlroy
March 11, 2013
1
MY LAST ARTS ONE
LECTURE
DEDICATED TO:
Dr. Mark Harris (1951-2013)
Mark Cochrane (1963-1980)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Biographical Facts (1)
• Born in Rosses Point, County Sligo, Ireland,
1950.
• Parents moved to Dublin when he was two.
• No TV at home: visited the cinema once
every two weeks.
• Attended University College Dublin,
graduated with BA in English & History in
1971.
9
Biographical Facts (2)
• At university, he played Tiresias in a
production of Oedipus Rex.
• Married in 1971 and he and wife moved to
London for two years to find work.
• Began writing short stories: first collection
entitled Night in Tunisia (1976)
• John Boorman read the collection and
invited him to collaborate on a film script.
10
Biographical Facts (3)
• Boorman employed Jordan as a “Creative
Associate” on the film Excalibur (1979).
• Boorman gave Jordan money to make a
documentary on the making of Excalibur.
• Jordan published his first novel The Past in 1980;
also began writing screenplays for TV drama and
film.
• Boorman instrumental in controversial decision in
giving Irish Film Board money to fund Jordan’s
first feature film.
11
12
Jordan’s Angel (1982)
•
•
•
•
Stephen Rea’s first film role for Jordan
Plays on the idea of an avenging angel
Set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s
Danny, a saxophonist, witnesses murders
and seeks revenge; he’s a man brutalized by
violence, then murders the murderers.
• Poetic, mannered, literary, uneven tone
13
Jordan’s Feature Films
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Angel (aka Danny Boy), IRE/UK,1982
The Company of Wolves, UK, 1984
Mona Lisa, UK 1986
High Spirits, USA 1988
We’re No Angels, USA 1989
The Miracle, UK, 1991
The Crying Game,UK 1992
14
Jordan’s Feature Films (2)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Interview With A Vampire, USA 1994
Michael Collins, USA 1996
The Butcher Boy, USA 1997
In Dreams, USA 1999
The End of The Affair, USA/Germany 1999
The Good Thief, Canada, 2002
Breakfast on Pluto, USA, 2005
The Brave One, USA, 2007
15
Most Recent Films/TV
• Ondine (2009)
• The Borgias (TV) (2011-)
• Byzantium (2012)
16
17
Key Dates in Irish History (1)
• Early 1600s, “The Flight of the Earls”
• 1603-1625: James I’s reign—policy of
“plantation” [English and Scottish Protestant
settlers to present day Northern Ireland. Common
that native Catholic Irish forced off their land.
• 1690 Battle of the Boyne—William of Orange
(Protestant) defeated armies of James II
(Catholic). Thereafter, royalty and Protestantism
inextricably linked.
18
Key Dates in Irish History (2)
• 1801 Act of Union—Dublin parliament dissolved
and Irish MPs travelled to Westminster
• Irish Nationalist forces gradually remove by
parliamentary means penal laws against Catholics,
e.g. Horse over 5 pounds-not
• Gradual move to Home Rule interrupted by First
World War
• 1916: Easter Uprising in Dublin
19
Key Dates in Irish History (3)
• 1919-1921: Irish War of Independence
• 1921: Peace agreement led to partition of Ireland:
The six counties of Northern Ireland remained in
the UK; 26 counties formed the new “Dominion”
of the Irish Free State, later The Republic of
Ireland
• 1922-23: Irish Civil War between “moderates”
and “hardliners” ; moderates win.
• 1968-69: “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland
began
20
Northern Ireland
• Initially 66% Protestant and Unionist, 33%
Catholic and Nationalist. 1.5 million total.
• Today, maybe 53%/47% religious split
• Between 1968 and 1998 at least 3500
people murdered/killed. Per capita, that
would mean 70,000 Canadians or ten times
the death toll of Americans in the Vietnam
War.
21
Who was fighting?
• The Irish Republican Army (IRA) who
believed Northern Ireland should be under
ALL-Irish control, and that Britain should
relinquish its control and leave.
• The British Army at one point had 20,000
troops in the country.
• Loyalist Paramilitaries emerged to fight the
IRA. Similar to militias.
22
Circa 1990-1992
• The guerilla war had continued for more
than twenty years; a stalemate had set in.
• British Ministers often talked about
“acceptable levels of violence” in private.
• Political progress, however, was beginning
to happen, but the IRA had started targeting
England as well as Northern Ireland.
23
“The Troubles”
• A little local difficulty
• A low grade civil war
• A guerilla campaign of bombs and bullets at
what were termed “legitimate targets”
• Northern Ireland ruled directly from
London, UK
• Diplock courts—judge and no jury
24
Literary and Filmic Sources
• Frank O’Connor’s short story “Guests of
the Nation” (1931): Republicans take two
English solders captive, then have to kill
them. Brendan Behan play, The Hostage
(1958)
• IRA man on the run: Carol Reed’s Odd
Man Out (1947) film.
• Orson Welles’ film Mr Arkadin (1955)—
uses the fable of The Scorpion and the Frog
25
The Scorpion and the Frog
• [Frog] takes the scorpion on his back.
Braves the waters. Halfway over feels a
burning spear in his side and realizes the
scorpion has stung him after all. And as they
both sink beneath the waves, the Frog cries
out, “Why did you sting me, Mr. Scorpion,
for now we both will drown?” Scorpion
replies, “I can’t help it, it’s in my nature”
26
Does Fergus have a story?
• Jody: Tell me something…
• Fergus: When I was a child, I thought as a
child. But when I became a man, I put away
childish things.
• Jody: what does that mean?
• Fergus: Nothing
• Jody: Not a lot of use, are you Fergus?
• Fergus: Me? No, I’m not good for much 27
1 Corinthians 13
• 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a
child; but when I became a man, I put
away childish things.
• 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but
then face to face. Now I know in part, but
then I shall know just as I also am
known.
• 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these
three; but the greatest of these is love.
28
Four Ways of Reading the Film
• Historical/Political: Violence a means with
no usable political end.
• Artistic: Jordan draws on the Literary and
Filmic Gothic: An Irish sublime
• A narrative platform to question racial,
gender and sexual identities
• A meditation on the nature of love and
desire
29
Hurling
30
31
And then cricket…..
32
Cricket
33
34
Romantic Sublime/Gothic
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Death Energy/burden of the past [Jody]
The monstrous feminine [Jude]
The adventurer/explorer—internal [Fergus]
Emotions treated as seriously as reasoning
Indulgence of the “unnatural”
Melodramatic consideration of suicide [Dil]
Feverish excitability/negative pleasures
35
Racial/Gender/Sexual
• Racial: A white man causes the death of a
black man
• Or, one white Irish “soldier” causes the
death of a black English soldier, both
working class, both colonized.
• A white man replaces the black man in his
love for a black “woman”.
36
Questions of Gender & Sexuality
• Jody and Fergus are bisexual, one knows it and
acts upon it; the other explores his homoerotic
desires, subconsciously?
• Is Dil a cross-dresser, a transwoman, queer,
transgender, homosexual, a person who escapes
labels?
• Is Jordan saying that men who get in touch with
their feminine side are glorious, while women who
get in touch with their male side (Jude) are
monstrous?
37
Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
(1990)
• “how do non-normative sexual practices
call into question the stability of gender as a
category of analysis? How do certain sexual
practices compel the question: what is a
woman, what is a man?” [xi, Preface, 1999]
• Butler considers lesbian as possibly a third
gender. [note its absence from the film]
38
Metropole and The Metro
• Metropolis—Greek for “Mother country” or
city state
• The French word métropole indicates the
controlling imperial centre
• Contrast the Metropolis [London for the
British Empire] to the Peripheries, such as
Ireland, Scotland, Wales, India, Australia
• The film’s Metro empowers the Marginal
39
40