A Retrospective Arrangement: The Evolution of a Tradition

The term "Irish film" immediately raises vexing questions of intent, not least being whether the emphasis should fall upon the first or second word. It has been a label as useful for its mutability as for any of its other characteristics. A full debate over the scope of that concept would demand a great deal more space than can be offered here, and the questions raised are likely to elude any kind of comprehensive resolution. The two-disc The O'Kalem Collection—compiled by the film scholar Tony Tracy with the assistance of the Irish Film Institute and BIFF Productions, and its accompanying feature-length documentary, Blazing the Trail by the Irish-American filmmaker Peter Flynn—conveys a powerful sense of the complexity of the issue of national identity and the impact of non-indigenous filmmakers on the growth of film in Ireland.

A key element that makes the definition of an Irish film more complex than that of, say, a German, Italian, or French film, lies in the early and influential intervention of foreign filmmakers presenting Irish-themed narrations in Irish locations. The Kalem Film Company was the first to do so in 1910, and their achievements set a pattern for generations of subsequent non-Irish filmmakers.¹ This tradition continued with Carol Reed, John Ford, Mike Leigh, John Huston, and Ken Loach, to name but a few. More than any other national cinema, Ireland's has grown through a strong and steady infusion of the work of non-indigenous filmmakers.²

The vast majority of the pioneering films made by Kalem in Ireland (several dozen shorts and feature length films) have been lost simply because of a lack of preservation efforts. Nonetheless, The O'Kalem Collection: 1910-1915 allows one to see a cross-section of the motion pictures to which the earliest Irish filmgoers were exposed. These films, in turn, shaped the consciousness of the earliest indigenous filmmakers like George Dewhurst, the talented amateur who in 1926 offered a forceful fictionalized account of the war of independence, Irish Destiny.

To make this connection even clearer, the collection includes the documentary Blazing the Trail. This eighty-three-minute film provides a thumbnail sketch of the rise and fall of Kalem Studios, neatly complementing the eight films (some only partially preserved) on the other DVD in the collection. Further, Blazing the Trail gives a somewhat more detailed account of two of its principals, director Sidney Olcott and the actor and screenwriter Gene Gauntier. The two joined Kalem Studios in its early stages and were responsible for much of the initial success of the company. Necessity made Kalem a pioneer in the filmmaking industry's first efforts at shooting on-site. The company lacked the funds for costly studio filming, and so—unlike its competitors, such as Edison's Biograph Company—it focused on location shooting. An amenable year 'round climate enticed Kalem to send Olcott and Gauntier to Florida, where they made dozens of film from historical dramas to Westerns. This commitment to location shooting led Kalem in 1910 to send Olcott, Gauntier, and cinematographer George K. Hollister to Ireland to film a series of motion pictures.

That summer, the O'Kalems shot a number of films in country locations outside Cork City. The best known and the most influential was The Lad from Old Ireland, a tale that looks at economic deprivation in Ireland, examines the consequences of emigration, and explores the social and emotional toll taken by both. In Blazing the Trail, several prominent critics develop the idea of emigration as the definitive feature of The Lad from Old Ireland; Kevin Rockett, for instance, notes that the film "lays the groundwork for a series of migration narratives." Rockett here obliquely touches on an analogy that others have traced more directly. The Lad from Old Ireland tells the story of a young man, Terry O'Connor (played by Olcott) who is forced to leave his native village and his sweetheart Aileen (played by Gauntier) to seek his fortune in America. After several years of hard work, Terry becomes a successful businessman, seeming to forget...