The Theater of Irish Cinema

An Introduction to the Issue(s)

Ireland's perimeter, no more extensive than the borders of Indiana, forms a slim girdle tightened by sea surges on all sides, enveloping a population of some five million, slightly less than that of Indiana. One might consider this place a miniature society cut off from the larger world, a Lilliput, and yet my subject, "The Theater of Irish Cinema," is the very opposite of insular. For when it comes to cinema, Ireland makes an exemplary world stage, providing unexpected access to occluded aspects of globalization. The movies produced there reach out routinely, automatically, beyond themselves to the theater and the other arts. And so, what might have been taken up as a simple land survey (identifying the handful of films turned out each year for a relatively homogenous nation)—a comfortable assignment for scholars worn down by the obdurate complexities of American, European or Asian cinemas—quickly grows into something larger, with Ireland serving as a laboratory for research projects funded by the upstart disciplines of comparative arts and global studies. Whoever enters this laboratory hopes to contribute to answering the perpetual question: what is Irish Cinema? Indeed, what is Irishness?

Vain, impossible, yet unavoidable questions. Some decades ago, in the USA at least, the phenomenon of "Stage Irish" would have been the obvious place to start our inquiry. Obvious indeed! Stereotypical Irish characters and antics conveniently served writers and directors who could be confident of their effect and slot these in to help build dramatic experiences of all sorts. Audiences relaxed with and enjoyed broad Irish accents, behavior, and banter, whether patronizing them or relishing the nostalgia they could provoke. "Stage Irish" are in every case little folk: rural, ahistorical, uncomplicated. The movie roles that devolved on these types have largely disappeared, especially after 1978 when the Irish began to make films themselves and control their projected image. The Irish camera, able to get "close up" to its own people (no longer "folk"), has repeatedly countered the endearing and naughty characters exploited in so many Hollywood films, and celebrated in John Ford's beloved The Quiet Man (1953). But we should not expect some collective effort to build a satisfying (and corrected) national portrait. What filmmaker would sign on to a mission like that?

Far from spotlighting Irishness, the stage and most definitely the screen in Ireland have brought onto the island characters, values, and ideas from abroad. "The Theater of Irish Cinema" is definitely global. A census taken a decade ago found that, in over a four year period, only two percent of films on offer in the country were indigenous, while Hollywood accounted for over 70%, and another 15% going to British productions. ¹ The remainder always included at least 6% from European countries. While in the 90s things improved for Irish productions, several of their films scoring very well in box office rankings (Michael Collins, The Commitments, and In the Name of the Father stand in the all-time top ten), screens there have always carried stories and images that appeal to spectators on all continents. Irish spectators, then, like most of the characters in their recent films, hope to mesh with this larger world. So too do a great many Irish cineastes who, more than most of their countrymen, have tasted international life in an unmediated form.

And so what can "essentially Irish" mean, either in the genealogical, cultural, or cinematic sense? At the onset of last century a call went out for a literary "revival" as prelude to a national rising; today Ireland has indeed revived and arisen but as a fully international animal, the 'Celtic Tiger.' Whatever you think of the results, the efforts of the EU and the momentum of the world-system have helped shape another Ireland altogether. Perhaps a totalitarian state like the People's Republic of China can (wishfully) think to engage selectively with "the Global" (resisting cultural contamination so as to...