A Cinema of Social Awareness Recent Irish Film as Post Celtic Tiger Discourse
Name
Dónal O’Brien
Student #
6097155
Email address
[email protected]
Course code
ALS4800
Group number
01
Supervisor
Jack Post
Assignment name
Master Thesis
Assignment #
01
Attempt
RESIT
Academic year
20142015
Date
04-01-2015
Words
25,702
Filename
20142015-ALS4800-01-RESIT-6097155.pdf
A Cinema of Social Awareness: Recent Irish Film as Post Celtic Tiger Discourse
I declare that this piece of writing is my own work; all use of other work and thoughts have been properly referenced.
Supervisor Dr. Jack Post
Donal O’Brien ID 6097155 04-01-2016 Master Thesis Number of words: 25, 702
Abstract Acclaimed film and documentary producer Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss remarked in her article Films can Help Change the World that “Film introduces us to worlds we never knew existed. Strangers become people we recognize. Unknown places become locations we long to go. Unfamiliar ideas suddenly have context”. Considering how films can have an effect on their audiences my thesis addresses the question of how recent Irish films provide discourses which create awareness of social issues in Irish society. Academics claim that discourses hold the power to influence their receivers into thinking, acting and speaking in certain ways; they have the power to change the way we view our social reality as well as the power to change social reality itself. The importance therefore to study discourses is to view how they project a view of the world and the possible reasons for their constructions. I use the method of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) to show how the film discourses of recent years oppose previous discourses that were set in the economically prosperous Celtic Tiger and view what the new discourses say about Irish society. I argue that the recent Irish films that I choose change the way Irish society is represented and help to spread social awareness of issues in society. Consequently, these discourses provide a Post Celtic Tiger discourse which captures how people in Irish society deal with issues that have emerged in the contemporary period. I conclude by showing how these recent film discourses do cultural work by broadening the visual representation of Irish society and spreading awareness of social issues. Film is thus seen as a tool of education and a method to promote positive change which builds community. In this case, my thesis proves that recent Irish films play this important role in the difficult social climate in the contemporary period.
Contents Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iii List of Images ................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................................ii Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 1. Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis .............................................................................. 10 1.2 Cultural Work: ...................................................................................................................... 16 2. Irish Cinema: From Independents through to the Recession era. .......................................... 20 2.1 Influential Irish Independents of the 1970s: ........................................................................ 21 2.2 A National Cinema for the people: The First Irish Film Board (1981-87):............................ 25 2.3 The Second Coming: Reformation of the Irish Film Board ................................................... 28 3. Discourses of the Celtic Tiger Ireland ...................................................................................... 33 3.1 Dominant Discourses of the Celtic Tiger .............................................................................. 35 3.2 The Snapper, About Adam and Man about Dog as examples of Celtic Tiger discourse in Second Wave film. ..................................................................................................................... 38 4. Driving Cultural Policy: The Cultural Work of Recent Irish Film. ............................................ 47 4.1 Over the Hill and Towards the Land where Richard Used to Live: ....................................... 48 4.1.1 What Richard Did ........................................................................................................... 48 4.1.2 Pilgrim Hill ...................................................................................................................... 51 4.1.3 I Used To Live Here ......................................................................................................... 54 4.1.4 Glassland ........................................................................................................................ 57 4.2 Crude Emblems of Irish Discontent: McDonagh’s provoking Black Comedies. ................... 61 4.2.1 The Guard....................................................................................................................... 62 4.2.2 Calvary ............................................................................................................................ 64 4.3 Summary: Opposing Celtic Tiger Discourse. ...................................................................... 67 5. Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................... 69 Reference List: .............................................................................................................................. 72
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List of Images Title Page: Ireland Paint Splashes Canvas Art by Michael Tompsett Image A: Director giving advice in Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire – p. 23 Image B: Danny loses control in Angel – p. 26 Image C: Unnamed guy talking to unnamed girl on Grafton Street in Once – p. 30 Image D: Michael Flatley and Jean Butler performing Riverdance at Eurovision 1994 – p. 36 Image E: Dessie Curley (centre) joking with his friends in the local pub in The Snapper – p. 39 Image F: Adam and Lucy announce in front of her family that they’re getting married in About Adam- p. 41 Image G: Paulsy, Mo Chara and Scud trying their luck at the bookmakers in Man About Dog – p. 44 Image H: Richard’s father breaks down in front of his son in What Richard Did – p. 50 Image I: Jim Walshe coming to terms with losing his cows in Pilgrim Hill – p. 52 Image J: Amy talking to Dylan on a wall in I Used to Live Here – p.55 Image K: John and his mother walking through their housing estate Glassland – p. 58 Image L: Drunken Sergeant Gerry Boyle conversing with FBI officer Wendell Everett in The Guard – p. 63 Image M: Father James watches his church burn down in Calvary – p. 65
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Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my parents and family who have given me the opportunity to study here in Maastricht. Your support of all kinds has not been forgotten and I appreciate every encouragement you have given me throughout this year as well as every other step in my lifetime. Next to them I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Jack Post for all his feedback, patience and support during the writing process; without his invaluable input it would have been a much more difficult process. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank all the amazing people I have met during my time in Maastricht who have now become close friends. Your friendship and support has made my time here an unforgettable one. Thank you all.
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Introduction Growing up in the Republic of Ireland during the 1990s and 2000s I noticed the changes in society and the effects that the economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger had on the country. The benefits for Irish society in this time were found mainly in the improvements of infrastructure, education and general living standards for many people. This led it to be heralded as a time when the nation rose to a standard that it had never reached before, one that made it one of the most economically prosperous nations in the world. This sense of progress and a general feel good attitude is also felt in many visual representations of Irish society, including in films, about the contemporary period. However, despite the economic advances during this time, which was influenced by modernization and globalization, there were also growing social issues which were not attended to; social issues such as those of addiction, social exclusion, abuses by the Catholic Church, rural isolation and mental health problems were just some of many. The successes of the economy and transformation of Irish society had overshadowed real problems for people in the country, leaving them to be somewhat ignored. In the films of this era the feel good attitude is also prevailing as social issues were frequently not addressed in any critical way. It seems that mainly those who benefited from the growing economy were represented and even for those who suffered, they were not shown to be seriously affected by the social issues. This thus led to a section of marginalized voices in Irish society being silenced in film representation in this era. Academics writing on this era noted the social inequalities for many people in Ireland. Kieran Allen in his book The Celtic Tiger: The Myth of Social Partnership (2000) refers to those who did not benefit from the economic boom as a residual category known as the ‘socially excluded’ (p. 36). The Celtic Tiger is seen by Allen to have created major social inequalities, mainly in the education opportunities for different social classes (p. 36). Louise Johnston also records in her work The Rising Tide that failed to lift all Boats: Poverty, Inequality and the Celtic Tiger (2009) that “the Celtic Tiger while benefiting some, has marginalized others, particularly those in poverty. This is particularly evident in respect of issues fundamental to quality of life, namely health and education” (p. 72). The source of these social inequalities on Irish society is due to the focus on economic imperatives as
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being seen as the prominent factor in the improvement of life. Peader Kirby is referenced in Cosmopolitan Ireland: Globalization and Quality of Life (2007) as cautioning “that uncritically celebrating economic growth as itself indicative of 'social progress' overlooks the disjuncture between high levels of economic growth and its social outcomes, or what he has called the 'stark contrast between economic success and social failure'” (2007, p. 16). This ‘social failure’ and the category of the ‘socially excluded’ present an Irish society that put financial profit over its own societal and cultural needs which created fissures within Irish society. The former President of Ireland sums up this feeling in a speech after the economic crash and the subsequent end of the Celtic Tiger period: “every one of us would have to say with our hands on our hearts that we were all consumed by that same element of consumerism… we have paid a very, very big price for that radical shift” (Quoted in O’Malley, 2011, p. 66). One can see that during the Celtic Tiger there had been an increase of the country’s financial fortunes that improved the quality of life for a part of Irish society. However, the economic rise didn’t cater for all the social needs of Irish people as is noted above by academics and politicians alike. The result was that the ‘radical shift’ led to growing social issues receiving little attention. One way that these social issues failed to receive attention was through the visual representations of Ireland and Irish life during this period. Irish culture and society transformed during the 1990s as it became ever more modernized, ranking among one of the most globalized countries in the world.1 As I observed before, film was one medium that captured the transitions and the subsequent contradictions of how the country was viewed during this period. In the Celtic Tiger period films gave viewers a certain representation of Ireland and Irish society during this time that differed from Irish films prior to the economic boom. Debbie Ging provided a chapter on Irish film in Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy (2002) titled ‘Screening the Green: Cinema under the Celtic Tiger’ that discussed the approaches in film in this era. Ging stated in the opening paragraph of her text that: The purpose of this chapter is to interrogate the way in which contemporary Irish cinema 1
Ireland is at the moment of writing (16th November 2015) considered the most globalized country in the world. http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/media/filer_public/2015/03/04/press_release_2015_en.pdf
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has addressed Celtic Tiger Ireland, and to contrast national cinema in an era of economic success with that of the earlier period, with specific emphasis on their respective approaches to diversity, multicultural identity and their capacity to accommodate marginalised voices (Kirby, 2002, p. 1).
In her analysis, Ging focused on aesthetic form and thematic content to view the films of her research. The analysis showed that the films during the Celtic Tiger period erased the type of self-questioning that characterized the films of the pre-boom Ireland, the ‘First Wave (mid 1970s to 1980s)’ as she terms them (p. 1). Instead, they projected a more marketable version of Irishness, whereby “Irish identity has become more a global commodity than a means of self-questioning” (p. 2). Ging’s research showed that when the economic status of Ireland changed so did the cultural representations along with it as the depictions of Irish life in film moved away from an interrogation of society towards a more globally friendly version that focused on interest from foreign markets. Ging stated at the end of her text that in order to stop the trend of conventional filmmaking that became a norm during the 1990s it is “important that the [Irish] Film Board and other funding bodies continue to invest not only in productions that can guarantee global appeal but also in narrative forms and themes that are specific to Irish experience, whether native, immigrant or diasporic” (p. 24). One can see from Ging’s work that the film culture, or ‘film industry’ as it could then be called, during the Celtic Tiger period was more focused on financial gains than presenting contemporary stories of Irish people and society. The consequence of this was that the growing ‘social failure’ and the representation of the ‘socially excluded’, as remarked by academics above, were also absent from the visual representation of Irish life during this period. This change in representation can be explained in Rosa Gonzalez Casademont’s chapter ‘The Glocalisation of Contemporary Irish Cinema’ found in In the Wake of the Tiger: Irish Studies in the Twenty-First Century (2010) which made a lot of similar claims to Ging’s study. Casademont uses the term ‘glocal’ which refers to the concept that describes how the ‘local’ is influenced by the ‘global’; how ‘world culture’ generated by globalisation influences local cultures and customs. Her study focuses on Irish film culture, as she aims to see how the “interplay between the global and the local in contemporary Irish society is affecting the politics, and the aesthetics, of representation in Irish cinema” (p. 128). This explains the ‘why’ of the change in visual representation. She further refers to films as
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“cultural proxies” by which “ideas, values and patterns of behaviours are transmitted across the world” as well as stating that films are “not only a producer of cultural images but also of cultural values as well” (p. 128). The cultural images and values that Irish films during the Celtic Tiger transmit across the world are ones influenced by globalisation; consumerism and individualism, or as Irish cinema academic Martin McLoone remarked them as “hedonism and consumption” (p. 134). Casademont’s work also highlighted the fact that overseas expectations of screen images of Ireland affected Irish filmmaking which consequently has “failed to reference the realities of contemporary Ireland and provide pictures of local life that Irish people could relate to” (p. 132). This lack of engagement with material that relates to Irish life is comparable to Ging’s call for more Irish films to produce work that is “specific to Irish experience” (p. 24). Once again, there is a reference to the commitment to financial imperatives in Irish film during the Celtic Tiger which led to this absence of dialogue with Irish issues through film. On this subject Casademont paraphrases McLoone when stating that “since filmmaking is now closely allied to commercial imperatives this leads to a “sanitized” cinema in which there are few opportunities to probe social tensions” (p. 134). Hence, from reading these analyses of Irish film during the Celtic Tiger by Ging and Casademont one can see that Irish cinema has been heavily influenced by the economic conditions of Ireland leading to a production of a more globalised film culture. The films of these years presented Ireland as one dominated by stereotypes from outside the country as well as presenting more international themes to enhance worldwide box-office gains. The problem highlighted is that Irish films turned away from the socially aware film culture that was built in the 1970s and 1980s which led to the marginalization of certain repressed people in Irish society. This turn is made during 1990s with the influence of globalisation having a major role in film production and the audiences that they were aiming for. This led to the film industry, with the Irish Film Board at the forefront, becoming more focused on financial gains which lost their focus on the social issues in Irish society. The emphasis in the literature on Irish film that I showed here is mainly on the effects of the Celtic Tiger and globalisation in Irish film culture which led to an absence of engagement with social issues in Irish society. Before progressing to the topic of my thesis
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for purposes of clarity in the analyses I have demarcated the history of Irish film into three periods ranging from the independent filmmakers of the 1970s to the present year, 2015: The First Wave (mid 1970s - 1980s), Second Wave (1990s – late 2000s), and Third Wave (late 2000s – now). I use Ging’s periodization of the First Wave (late 1970s - 1980s) which includes the independent filmmakers of the 1970s and the establishment of the first Irish Film Board in 1980 to its closure in 1987. The Second Wave (1990s – late 2000s) coincides with the beginning of the Celtic Tiger and the re-establishment of the IFB and continues until the end of the Celtic Tiger in the late 2000s. The Third Wave (late 2000s – now) represents the contemporary period after the Celtic Tiger. I have divided the period from the 1990s to 2015 at the point where the Celtic Tiger ends as I see the economic imperatives of the Celtic Tiger had an influence on the film production during this time. The demarcation of the Third Wave represents the contemporary time following the Celtic Tiger. The sense for a need of change in the Third Wave is felt in director Mark O’Connor’s call for a new wave of Irish cinema that engaged with the social realities of the contemporary period in his manifesto ‘Irish Cinema: A Call to Arms’ (“Irish Cinema’s New Wave: A Manifesto”, 2012). O’Connor begins by remarking: There is a new face in Irish cinema. The makeup is finally coming off. The conventional and generic Irish films of the past are being replaced by what could be referred to as ‘The Irish New Wave’ or ‘Tonn Nua’. I believe that we are finally finding our voice (2012).
O’Connor’s statement is seen to be a somewhat radical and bold move that attacks previous Irish filmmaking traditions: “This article is written with the intention of bringing recognition to the wave. We need to build our indigenous film industry by making it about ourselves instead of trying to replicate the foreign model” (2012). He also calls for making “room for the rejects” of Irish society and “rage against the silence” by sharing our feelings about society which both conflict with, up until now, common processes in Irish filmmaking. Roddy Flynn and Tony Tracy in “Irish Film and TV Review: Introduction” (2013) maintain in reviewing O’Connor’s manifesto that: The bombast of youth notwithstanding, this is a provocative declaration. At a time of crushing economic and (as a consequence) social crisis, the prospect of a radical cinema movement offers enormous possibilities, even if the economic contraction seems to militate against such costly arts as film and television. The question is whether O'Connor's
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assertions reflect current trends or wishful thinking [?] (2013).
It can be seen then that O’Connor’s manifesto is a rather interesting perspective on the climate of film production in Ireland and the feelings of some in the industry who wish to change the previous processes in filmmaking. Although the manifesto was written for the intention of independent filmmakers to break away from the industrial models that suppress the protest type of films that he encourages, there seems to be a reflection also on the scale of feature films that show an alternative side of Irish society. Ronan Doyle refers to O’Connor’s manifesto in his article Why You Need to Start Paying Attention to Irish Cinema (2013), in which he merits the emergence of Irish filmmakers in responding to the social conditions of Irish society coming out of the economic crash. Doyle maintained that despite the statement not having a huge positive reception in its “crassly reactionary effort to incite change” it is “indicative at least of the groundswell of passion prominent among the nation's emerging young filmmakers” (2013). Doyle also writes in relation to the trend of filmmaking in engaging with the contemporary period: “Much like the economic fallout of the financial crash, it has been left to the country’s youth to address these new issues by way of its culture, to find in its cinema a perspective on this chaotic present” (2013). The idea of film addressing new issues in society leads to his comparison of recent Irish film to that of the Italian neorealism movement after the Second World War which showed the bleak social realities of people in Italian society: “Like the influential Italian cinema that rose from the ashes of the country’s grim post-war prospects, this modern surge in Irish filmmaking comes not in spite of the nation’s circumstances, but because of them: the market’s crash is the movies’ boom” (2013). The movement toward a more socially aware film culture offers a viewpoint into the reality of Irish society in the contemporary period as perceived by recent Irish filmmakers which is one that responds to the social conditions created by the economic crash. One can note in this period an attitude of change is emergent, where a number of filmmakers wish to depart from previous approaches to filmmaking and turn to ways of engaging more with contemporary themes. It is at this point where I turn to the focus of my thesis as I concentrate on the topic of the discourses of social issues by such emergent films of the Third Wave that Doyle refers
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to as ones which “address these new issues” and have a “perspective on this chaotic present” (2013). The purpose of this study is to fill the gap in knowledge left in current literature of how recent film has developed from and responds to the Celtic Tiger years and how the background to film production plays a major part in the creation of discourses. Also, the study inspects in what ways these discourses reflect on contemporary society and provide an alternative perspective on Irish society to that of the previous era. The background to film production consists of such factors as the socio-cultural contexts, the funding by the film production organisations (i.e. IFB), the background of the filmmakers and their influences on the film discourses. To conduct my research I use the methodology of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse the elements of film production and the resulting discourses as well as the discussions of the films. The framework of this methodology will allow me to dissect the many factors which build a film discourse and the implication that such discourse may have on their audiences. In analysing the film material I refer to Gillian Rose’s Visual Methodologies (2012) which helps me to apply discourse analysis to film. My analysis of film discourses in the Third Wave will answer Ging’s question of whether there has been an investment in films that are more “specific to Irish experience” and consider the strength of Mark O’Connor’s assertion that there is a “new face in Irish cinema”. I will also view the Third Wave in relation to the First and Second Waves to see how the elements that characterized both eras may be seen in the recent era and the significance of this for the future of Irish film. My research question that drives this thesis is: How do discourses of social issues in recent Irish films (Third Wave) oppose previous discourses of the Celtic Tiger period (Second Wave) and what is the significance of these discourses in the contemporary period? I selected six films in the Third Wave that take on social issues in contemporary Irish society. These films are: Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did (2012), Frank Berry’s I Used to Live Here (2014) Gerard Barrett’s Pilgrim Hill (2013) and Glassland (2014), and John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014). I chose these particular films over others because they all reveal different aspects of Irish society where social issues occur. They are set in diverse geographical locations, show characters from different social backgrounds and also demonstrate the various approaches to how the issues may affect
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people and how they are dealt with in their discourses. Overall, they represent a diversity that covers large areas of the Irish social landscape. As well as this, they are funded by Irish production companies and are directed and written by emergent Irish directors or directors with close ties to Ireland. The significance of the study is to view how films construct discourses on social issues. From my observations and those of critics of the way that Irish society was presenting during the Second Wave as one almost void of critical reflection. I move to view how films of the Third Wave can generate social awareness in contemporary Irish society by addressing the current social issues and placing the troubled period into perspective. This contributes to literature on Irish film by providing the understanding of film playing an important role in revealing social issues and the effects they have in society and show how there has been a shift in approaches to film discourse in the Second and Third Waves. I claim that the films of the Third Wave create awareness of social issues that were overlooked during the period that Irish society was transformed by globalization and a successful economy in the Second Wave. This leads me to attribute the concept of ‘cultural work’ to these films for their discourses which open the possibility of social awareness and encouraging dialogue of social issues. At this point, I explain the structure of my thesis and a general outline of how I answer my research question. In the first chapter I will explain my methodology of critical discourse analysis and the concept of cultural work. I do this in order to provide a solid understanding of the steps and strengths of the application of the methodology by using examples of its use and how it will progress my analysis of the films. I will then give a description of the concept of cultural work also with the help of an example which will help me to shape my use of the concept and how it progresses my research. In the second chapter I explore the tradition of Irish filmmakers from the First Wave and Second Wave using film to present social issues as well as the role of the Irish Film Board in assisting the creation of these films. I do this to show how filmmakers in the First Wave created an alternative discourse to previous visions of Irish society on screen and how it gives a background to future progressions in Irish film. In the third chapter, I expose how the dominant discourse on Irish society in the period of the Celtic Tiger was created. This will
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lay a foundation in how to view contemporary Irish society which grew out of this discourse and show what the chosen films of the Third Wave respond to. I analyze some select films during the Second Wave that exemplify the influence of this discourse in film. The discussions of this period will highlight how the analyzed films of the Third Wave in the fourth section provide an opposing discourse on the succeeding conditions of Irish society in the post Celtic Tiger period. The fourth chapter entails an in-depth analysis of my case studies of the Third Wave which leads to my research findings of how recent films respond to and oppose the Celtic Tiger discourse. The thesis will end with a return to the research question and how my thesis has answered it and consequently how my research has added to the study of Irish film.
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1. Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis My primary methodology in this thesis will be the use of critical discourse analysis (from this point known as CDA). First, before discussing this method I will begin by giving a description of what discourses are and more specifically why it is important to study them in order to bring clarity to my research. The term ‘discourse’, in everyday language, can have many definitions which typically refer to the use of language either written or spoken to communicate ideas and arguments about a subject. In this section, however, I will focus on how it is used in academic studies and more specifically how discourse is analyzed for the purposes of social research. Fran Tonkiss states that: Discourse can refer to a single utterance or speech act (from a fragment of talk, to a private conversation, to a political speech) or to a systematic ordering of language involving certain rules, terminology and conventions (such as legal or medical discourse) (2012, p. 406).
This second definition of discourse as a “systematic ordering of language” is more in line with discourse as described by Michel Foucault. Foucauldian discourse analysis focuses on the relation of language and power; how language is used by people and organizations to create certain ‘meanings’ and ‘truths’ depending in which context they are used. Siegfried Jager and Florentine Maier elaborate on the role of discourses in everyday life by saying that “Discourses exercise power in society because they institutionalize and regulate ways of thinking, talking and acting” (Wodak, 2009, p. 35). On the idea of the power of discourse infiltrating the social world and regulating people’s ways of thinking and communicating Tonkiss remarks that “Discourse, in Foucault’s sense, does not refer simply to language or speech acts, but to the way language works to organize fields of knowledge and practice” (p. 406). This view of discourse analysis is closely aligned to ‘social constructivism’ which views how language is used by people and organizations to distribute certain knowledge for their own motives which subsequently shape and construct the society we live in. The intersection of discourses and reality and how they influence the social world is noted by Jager and Maier: “Discourses do not merely reflect reality. Rather, discourses not only shape but even enable (social) reality. Without discourses, there would be no (social) reality” (Wodak, 2009, p. 36). It can therefore be seen that discourses are what make up the reality that people perceive and also organize the way one sees it and their knowledge of it.
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Now, to turn to how discourses are analyzed, Brian Paltridge in his book Discourse Analysis: An introduction (2012) gives a description of what this methodology does: “Discourse analysis examines patterns of language across texts and considers the relationship between language and the social and cultural contexts in which it is used” (p. 2). The patterns of language are seen to have an effect on the society that they comment on and consequently alter how they are imagined. Until now, I have spoken of language as the main component of analysis; however, there are many other objects which can be a part of discourse analysis. Such objects can be that of photography, music, architecture or film which all have influential ways of presenting and organizing the way one views social reality. One such example of discourse analysis on photography is Gabriela B. Christmann’s work The Power of Photographs of Buildings in the Dresden Urban Discourse. Towards a Visual Discourse Analysis. (2008). Christmann’s work explored, with the use of visual discourse analysis, “which meanings are included in visual data, and in what way do they contribute to the development of specific interpretations of the city's reality?” (p. 4). While in music an example is Aixa L Rodriguez-Rodriguez’s dissertation Music as a form of resistance: A critical analysis of the Puerto Rican new song movement’s oppositional discourse (1995). Rodriguez-Rodriguez uses discourse analysis here to study new songs texts as oppositional discourse to cultural and political dynamics of Puerto Rican society which “explores possible reasons why that oppositional discourse did not interpellate larger segments of the popular classes, or why it did not become a hegemonic discourse” (abstract). These examples of the use of discourse analysis show how it can be used to analyze different practices in the world and how they construct their own discourses of ‘reality’. The power of discourse to influence how reality is seen, noting Jaeger and Maier’s assertion that discourses create social reality, is further emphasized by Parltridge as he states that discourse is “shaped by the world as well as shaping the world” (p. 7). Conflicting discourses inevitably develop out of various practices as they each portray their version of reality which subsequently shape how one views the world. Clayton Whisnant on the subject of conflicting discourses in his work Foucault & Discourse remarks that discourse analysis is “well suited for analyzing struggles over meaning and other power conflicts” (p. 3-4). He further expands on this claim to view discourse as playing a significant role in
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historical change (p. 4). The importance of studying discourse, therefore, is in the need to analyze how the world is presented by those who have the power to create influencing discourses on significant issues. For this reason it is vital to see whether these discourses are aimed to manipulate and deceive people for ulterior interests by whoever produces them. To get an idea of what the producer of discourses intend, Whisnant further specifies discourse theory as being crucial in teaching us to be attentive to the small shifts in how ideas are expressed: Discourse refers to very specific patterns of language that tell us something about the person speaking the language, the culture that that person is part of, the network of social institutions that the person [is] caught up in, and even frequently the most basic assumptions that the person holds (p. 5-6)
The focus on analyzing this aspect in the creation of discourse is the main objective in CDA. At this point I move towards the use of discourse analysis in this thesis and demonstrate how film material will be considered by this methodology. I have stated, with reference, that language is not the only object taken as the primary object of study in discourse analysis. In my analysis of film discourses I take a multimodal approach which studies the images on screen (visualizations), narrative text (verbal), sound, and music which I consider are all components of the ‘film text’. As mentioned in the introduction I turn to Gillian Rose’s work Visual Methodologies: An Introduction into the Interpretation of Visual Materials (2012) in order to apply discourse analysis to film material. In the book Rose states that it is possible to “think of visuality as a sort of discourse too. A specific visuality will make certain things visible in particular ways, and other things unseeable, for example, and subjects will be produced and act within that field of vision” (p. 137). In addition to this I take into consideration the secondary material; the reviews by critics and studies by academics which add to the discussions on the discourse. I use CDA as my main tool of research in order to analyze the film production background and the influence it has on film discourses and the possible effects of them on their consumers. My subjects are the films from the Second Wave (1990s – mid 2000s) and the Third Wave (late 2000s – now). Tonkiss states that critical discourse analysts “go beyond the rhetorical or technical analysis of language to explore its social and political setting, uses and effects” (p. 408). In my analysis of the films of these eras I will take into
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consideration the historical and social contexts from which they were produced and view how they present and comment on social issues in each period. I will focus on how the films of the Celtic Tiger period (Second Wave) produced their own ideological view, or visuality, of Irish society and created discourses on social issues that opted not to highlight the serious effects they have for people which in turn led them to be somewhat ‘unseeable’. Following on from this I will then contrast how the films of Post Celtic Tiger period (Third Wave) focus more upon social issues and direct their ‘field of vision’ on the impact they have for many people in Irish society. The framework of CDA that I use is based on Norman Fairclough’s (Wodak, 2001) three levels of discourse context: the macro, the meso and the micro. These three levels are seen to be vital in studying discourses in their full social and historical contexts. Here is a description of how each level of context is analyzed, taken from the Linguistics department of the University of Sheffield website2: -
Macro level: This level of analysis lies in the context of the relationship between the text and broader social processes and ideologies; for example, what social issues are of particular importance at the time the texts were created.
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Meso level: analysis focuses on the context of production and reception of the text; where was the text made? Who was it written by? What perspective might this person want to promote? What kind of person might read this text? etc.
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Micro level: looks at what is actually being said in the text, and what linguistic features and devices are being used to depict an idea. What is the discourse created in relation to the broader social processes and ideologies?
This framework of analysis pays close attention to each factor of a text’s production and reception. Fairclough on the functioning of the methodology of CDA notes: It facilitates the integration of ‘micro’ analysis and ‘macro’ analysis. It is moreover a critical approach to discourse analysis in the sense it sets out to make visible through analysis, and to criticize, connections between properties of texts and social processes and relations (ideologies, power relations) which are generally not obvious to people who produce and interpret those texts” (1995, p. 97).
2
https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/branches/discourseanalysis/example-research
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In this thesis I use the levels of macro, meso and micro in relation to the films’ social context, production and resulting discourse from the film text. Here is a description of how each level will play a part in my overall analysis of the films: -
Macro: The context of the broader social issues and ideologies at the time which the films are created are taken into account. What are the contemporary social issues in Irish society being discussed in the film texts?
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Meso: The contexts of the films’ productions are analyzed to view how external factors impact on the creation of the films’ texts. Such factors to be questioned are: Who writes and directs the films? What perspective are they coming from? What audiences are being aimed at?
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Micro: On the micro-linguistic level, what exactly is being said about the social issues in the film text is analyzed. How are the issues presented visually? What ideas are produced about these issues and if there are possible solutions provided to combat them?
The analysis of these three levels on the films of my research will show how film production in the Second Wave was heavily influenced by the economic imperatives brought by the Celtic Tiger and the impact of globalization on Irish society. This shows then how the films produced a Celtic Tiger discourse on the film text of the contemporary social issues in Ireland at the time of the films’ productions. I will then show how the films of the Third Wave contrast to the Celtic Tiger film discourses by creating new discourses that engage with social issues in a different way in the film texts. The key reason for the change will be viewed on the production level and the processes that are a part of film’s creation and how they derive from the broader social issues which produce a more socially aware film text. The ability of the films in the Third Wave to promote social awareness on the micro level leads to my claim that the films produce ‘culture work’, a concept I explain in more detail in the next section. In conclusion to this section I have outlined how films have the power to produce discourses on important matters that can shape society and how it is viewed. The significance of the role of production in the how these discourses are created is of particular importance in order to view the possible intentions behind the films being
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produced and the audiences aimed at. The methodology of CDA and the framework adapted from Norman Fairclough provide the apparatus from which my analysis can move beyond observation, documentation and historiography as was found in other studies on Irish film. My analysis instead considers the question of ‘how’ Irish films engage with social issues and oppose previous discourses as well as providing a way to view films as producing ‘cultural work’ in Irish society.
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1.2 Cultural Work: In this section I explain the concept of cultural work and how it can be applied to the films of the Third Wave. Cultural work derives from the critical aspect of the film discourses on the micro level of discourse analysis; how they talk about the social issues and oppose Celtic Tiger discourse. To begin, I show how this concept has been used before by Jane Tompkins in her study Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction (17901860) (1985). My analysis of Tompkins’s use of cultural work in her study will show me the weaknesses and strengths of her use of the concept. I shall then detail how I use the concept in comparison to Tompkins and how I aim to avoid the weaknesses noted in her study. To validate the use of this concept I consider how it broadens the study on Irish film with its function to create dialogue and spread awareness of social issues. Tompkins states in the introduction to her book that she attempts to “move the study of American literature away from the small group of master texts that have dominated critical discussion for the last thirty years” (p. xi). She does this in order to move the focus towards how novels and literature “offer powerful examples of the way culture thinks about itself, articulating and proposing solutions for the problems that shape a particular historical moment” (p. xi). Tompkins’s study, similar to my own, researches how literature (in my case film) proposes solutions for problems by viewing her chosen works in relation to the “religious beliefs, social practices, and economic and political circumstances that produced them” (p. xiii). It can be seen that she takes into account broader social issues on the macro level that ‘shape a particular historical moment’ as well as accounting for the factors that influence the production which correlate to the meso level of analysis. Tompkins claims that cultural work is produced on the level that the novels are designed to do such work and wishes the reader of the novels to read them according to their authors design and intention (p. xi). The use of the term ‘cultural work’ as used by Tompkins is based on these ‘solutions for problems’ that she focuses on in her chosen literature. The strengths of her work and the use of cultural work as a concept is in her attempts to break with the dominated traditions of the canon in American literature “in doing so makes an important contribution to the study of literature written by American
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women” (Meyers, p. 320). The focus on the cultural work, done by the novels and writers that have been previously ignored, is in how these works offer a more diverse story of American fiction during this period. In addition to this, Tompkins redefines the study of literature and literary studies by seeing how the work done by the literature “attempts to refine the social order” rather than just embodying complex forms or enduring themes (p. xii). These strengths in the use of cultural work are further acknowledged by Meyers as she notes that “More attention must be paid to the work literature does as part of an evolving, mutable, cultural base” (p. 321). Despite the strengths in the use of the concept there are some weaknesses found in Tompkins’s approach. Nina Baym in her review states “If we are going to talk about texts “doing a certain kind of cultural work within a specific historical situation” (p. 200), we need a specific history, not catchphrases” (p. 99). Baym remarked that she believes that it is immensely difficult and challenging to discover what cultural work a novel did as “we must learn how it was received, what impact it had on what audiences, if and how it led to human change and what that change consisted of” (p. 98-9). Baym further criticizes the use of the concept saying that “we cannot properly talk about the way in which texts work in the world unless we talk about the world” (p. 98). This thus leads to the need, in Baym’s view, to provide an analysis of the social and cultural conditions behind the works in order to see how they interact with the world. Considering these strengths and weaknesses of the use of the concept of cultural work by Tompkins I will outline here how I use it in my thesis. My research differs to that of Tompkins in a few areas. One such contrast is considering her wish for the reader to the read the novels according to the authorial intention to make people think and act in a particular way. I rather propose to read the film texts with knowledge of the meso factors of production which affect what is created on the micro level in the film text, which Baym alludes to in her criticism of Tompkins in the need of knowledge of the social and cultural conditions. I consider the processes of film creation as it allows an insight into how the film text can be shaped for other interests that can have an overall effect on the discourse created and the reasons for this shaping. This avoids trying to articulate what is the intention of the film and the difficulties connected to this practice; the reaction of critics and academics on the film give the material which allows one to judge whether these film
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produce cultural work. Tompkins further emphasizes the affect that literature can have on its readers in stating that she aims to “explore the way that literature has power in the world, to see how it connects with the beliefs and attitudes of large masses of readers so as to impress or move them deeply” (p. xiv). Here again I move away from claiming that the films of my analysis have power in the world and can affect the audience deeply. I suggest instead that the films that I analyze of the Third Wave signify an opposing film discourse that reflects the social and economic climate of people in post-Celtic Tiger Irish society. These films have power then to discuss the social issues that have been previously ignored or hidden and offer a space to reconsider them. It is here on the micro level where cultural work can be produced, where the discourses engage with the social issues of contemporary Irish society in the film text and thus produce social awareness. The intention of analysis is not whether they connect with the belief of large masses of readers but rather that they produce a work that has the potential to create dialogue of social issues that can reach the larger masses. Therefore, these films can be used to highlight the change without necessarily being ‘designed’ or intended to do so. The use of this concept furthers the study of Irish film by viewing the role of film in creating awareness of social issues in Irish society. Focusing on film one can view how society is imagined and constructed on screen and how it has the potential of opening dialogue on issues that affect people in society. Arlene Goldbard, in her article on the power artists hold in creating social change, stated that “we need artists and other creators of culture who can elicit and link many different stories into those that create possibility rather than foreclose it” (“The Old Paradigm’s Demoralizing Orthodoxies Make Us Confuse Despair With Realism”, 2015). The creation of possibility in film discourse opens up their potential to affect audiences into questioning how they view the world. Returning to Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss in her article Films can help change the World (2013) she quotes Martin Scorsese when talking about how films affect their viewers: “Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things – They open doors and minds”. This idea of film altering one’s vision of the world and changing how we view it is directly linked with discourse analysis as it helps to shape the reality of the viewer. The use of film also an educational tool in teaching about society is an aspect of Irish film that I have
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not come across. Considering the cultural work done by the films of Third Wave allows viewers to reconsider contemporary Irish society through film discourses and therefore can be seen as a method of education that broadens the discourses of Irish society.
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2. Irish Cinema: From Independents through to the Recession era. In this chapter I look back at the history of Irish film in Ireland in order to explain how previous works and people helped to influence the past and current processes in Irish film. I will keep in mind what Nina Baym said of cultural work in the previous section: “If we are going to talk about texts “doing a certain kind of cultural work within a specific historical situation” (p. 200), we need a specific history, not catchphrases” (p. 99). I will therefore give an account of the history of film in Ireland and pay attention particularly to how film can be seen historically as an alternative discourse and reflection on Irish society. The historical events and people in the film industry who helped to make way for the future eras of Irish filmmaking are necessary in viewing how recent Irish film can be seen to derive from these origins with the help of the establishment of the Irish Film Board. How films maintained the dominant discourse in the Celtic Tiger period, the Second Wave, will be explained to show how films of the Third Wave conflict the discourses and by doing so provide cultural work by the film discourses. In the methodology section I have outlined the social consequences of discourses in shaping and even creating social realities as remarked by Jaeger and Maier: “Discourses do not merely reflect reality. Rather, discourses not only shape but even enable (social) reality. Without discourses, there would be no (social) reality” (Wodak, 2009, p. 36). To continue in this line of thought I shall highlight the way Irish film has provided discourses in relation to the social surroundings in the past few decades and how these visual discourses add to the social reality of Irish society. I first turn to the First Wave, the independent Irish filmmakers of the 1970s who can be seen to have paved the way for future generations as they are considered the first who created film discourses of Ireland and Irish society from inside the country. Díog O'Connell reiterates this point by remarking on the impact of the independent filmmakers in the 1970s that there was a “period of experimental film, interrogative of many aspects of Irish identity [...] and for the first time since the development of moving pictures, it provided Ireland with a body of work that could loosely be referred to as 'national cinema'” (2010, p. 23). From this point I will look at the period of the short existence of the first Irish Film Board at the beginning of the 1980s until 1987. I will assess how it helped to support directors who emerged from this time and analyse the film style they used in their works. This will eventually lead to the Second Wave and the reformation of the Irish Film Board in
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the 1990s. I will then from here discuss Irish film from the 1990s up until the present day; this will give a platform from which the significance of the selected films of the Third Wave can be put into perspective within Irish film history. 2.1 Influential Irish Independents of the 1970s: Ruth Barton in her book Irish National Cinema stated that the period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s was marked by a “desire to deconstruct received notions of Irish images and themes as they had appeared on screen up to this point and to confront issues that were emerging within Irish society as modernisation took increasing hold” (2004, p. 85). Barton further goes on to remark that the works of the directors of this period “addressed questions of social exclusion, emigration, religion, memory nationalism and feminism” (p. 85). The two objectives, of deconstructing received notions of Irish from outside Ireland and the need to present issues of social importance to the Irish people, demarcates a period where the first real input of Irish filmmakers in Ireland about the nation and its people is found. The discourse of Irish identity by foreign directors can be seen to be challenged by a conflicting discourse by these innovative Irish filmmakers. The films were a part of what Barton describes as a “new Irish cinematic idiom” that sought to break the tradition of romanticism about Ireland that was created mostly from foreign filmmakers that held on to the stereotyped image in their productions instead of delving into current issues in Irish societies at the time as their focus (p. 85). This ‘new Irish cinematic idiom’ was led by way of avant-garde, experimental and low-budget filmmaking practices in which this era is noted by Barton as being a “golden age of Irish filmmaking, distinguished by a level of formal experimentation as much as by its political engagement” (p. 87). Arriving at the point of using film as political and social engagement can be considered as a momentous step in creating a platform from which filmmakers can voice their views on an impacting public level which provides an opportunity for their films to do the type of ‘cultural work’ as I described previously. The methods that Irish filmmakers used in creating their works were seen to be of an avant-garde nature, in that it adhered to the attitude of this movement when focusing on Irish issues. Michael O'Pray remarks on the first avant-garde artists in the 1920s that “in many ways, the avant-gardes saw their role as being in opposition to high art and
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attempting to displace it, to become a new 'high art' so to speak” (2013, p. 8). Therefore, these Irish filmmakers in the 1970s can be seen in their desire to replace the Hollywood notions of filmmaking and oppose them by using alternative film styles. Although Hollywood would not necessarily be considered 'high art' in the strictest sense it can be seen to constitute the dominant film practices of the time that can label it as a style to be countered in the avant-garde attitude. The experimental avant-garde filmmaking stylistics that these Irish filmmakers utilized can be seen to take inspiration from the European style as they contained political elements in their narratives. O'Pray comments on the European avant-garde noting that it was “both formally innovative and often politically radical and initially formed a part of the 1960s counter-culture” (p. 96). However, Irish filmmakers also contained the American avant-garde desire for breaking with the dominant formal aspects of film of the period. Irish cinema can be stated to be stuck between these two traditions as it aimed to create a distinct film culture that engaged with issues on a political and social level while at the same time presented Ireland and the Irish people as they haven’t been before on screen. As a result, one can see that the desire of breaking away from previous traditions, created through their films discourses, challenged established representations of Irish life. Additionally, it shows how film was used to interrogate Irish society while simultaneously creating discourses which influenced the social reality of their viewers. One film that expresses the binary innovations from the European and American avant-garde movements that can be seen in the independent films of this period is Bob Quinn's Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire (1975) (The Lament for Art O'Leary). This film contained both an artistically challenging narrative structure as well as politically controversial themes and, not so surprisingly, was supported financially by Sinn Fein, a nationalist political party. This influence in the financing of the film deriving from a political party suggests on the meso level of analysis that a political interest in the discourse created by the film. The film itself, based on an old Irish lament for Art O'Leary, tells the story of an Irish Austro-Hungarian army captain who after returning to his home in Ireland for some years is confronted by Abraham Morris, an arrogant English High Sheriff of the region who eventually had Art murdered for refusing to obey his commands. The film’s complex narrative structure, which mixes the filming of set scenes with those of the fictional filming
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process itself. The fictional filming centres on a mixed media production of the story directed by an Englishman. As the actor of the main character, Art O'Leary, confronts the director, who also plays the character of Abraham Morris, over his vision for the film it leads to a coincidental mirroring of the scripted storyline. Presented as a film within a film the blurring of the fictional film and the recording of it makes it difficult for the viewer to distinguish between the two.
Image A: Scene from Bob Quinn’s Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire (1975). The complexity of the film narrative as the two storylines intertwine can be regarded on the micro level of analysis as an allegorical commentary of actual events in parts of Ireland at the time, with the issue of the increasingly violent Troubles in Northern Ireland intensifying in this era. One can view the confusion that the film narrative makes for the viewer to see a clear structure as a reflection of the ever more difficult task of understanding the real life events of violence in the North of Ireland. Barton comments on the topic of social significance by declaring: “The central topos of the film is the effects of colonisation both in the past and the present” (p. 92). It is seen as one of the first films in the above-quoted 'golden age of Irish filmmaking', its experimentation in the formal aspects
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of filmmaking and the engagement on a political level is significant in what follows in Irish film history, also in regard to the social engagements of issues in Irish society. In line with the European avant-garde movements many films of the two decades discussed here, the 1970s and 1980s, can be seen as critical commentary on the state of Irish life. Another example to compare with Bob Quinn's Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire is Joe Comerford's Down the Corner (1977), the film follows a group of young boys who live and spend their spare time around Ballyfermot, a poor working-class residential area of Dublin. The film's narrative frames the lives of these youths in a realist style that presents the issues of poverty and aimlessness of their everyday activities in the area. The macro level of analysis shows that the film takes place during a time of economic crisis and subsequent poverty and unemployment. Barton remarks on the way that the issues were represented saying: “The film’s construction denies the conventions of Hollywood filmmaking, refusing either to fetishize poverty or to suggest that the central characters will triumph over their environment” (p. 90). The micro level of analysis thus shows that the film produces a discourse that, typical of realist style, reveals the painful truth of everyday life of the people it depicts, without any glorification of the lower class which may be found in Hollywood productions. On the meso level of analysis in the production of the film is helped by a local community arts workshop which used local people from the area as the ‘actors’ to play the characters in the film. This level of engagement with the local people directly influencing and being a part of the film adds to the social engagement as well as producing a more accurate discourse on the micro level of life in the area. The use of film, as demonstrated here, to give an image of Irish life and criticizing it makes it a tool of social discourse and commentary that runs into the following generations and eras of Irish filmmaking. Barton comments on the state of Irish society and the general attitudes in the period of the first Irish Film Board by saying: “Such was the sense of crisis by the mid-1980s that it seemed that the official commitment to modernisation was little better than earlier policies of economic isolation. This disenchantment seeped through into all modes of artistic expression” (p. 87). O'Connell notes on this same era that “the defining thematics of this period centred on the notion of 'Irishness' particularly as a constructed form of identity…” (pp. 23-24). To consider these attitudes with each other draws a bleak
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picture of Irish society in what appeared to be a very troublesome time for the people of the nation. The issues of the discourses of a constructed identity and coming to terms with the bleak reality in which the population lived are expressed through film giving it the status of interrogator of Irish life. The films of the era can thus be viewed to perform the type of cultural work I apply to the films of the Third Wave by way of raising awareness of the social issues that affected many and by doing so, critiquing society itself. It was an entry into how film could reflect upon Irish society and create new film discourses of it while at the same time it showed how film opposed the discourse of Irish society and culture made in previous depictions of Ireland outside the country. Remarking on what these films wanted to achieve Barton noted what is critical in what came out of the avant-garde practice “was the issue of 'unpleasure' itself viewed as the desired consequence of breaking with the conventions of dominant cinema” (p. 88). The need to break with conventions is what gained much warranted attention for the small community of Irish filmmakers which eventually led to the establishment of the first Irish Film Board in 1981, an important step for the creation of a film culture in Ireland. 2.2 A National Cinema for the people: The First Irish Film Board (1981-87): The ambitions of the first Irish Film Board (IFB) were centred on creating and enhancing the artistic output of Irish filmmakers with special intention towards producing works for wide release in cinemas. On a production level, a meso level of analysis of the films, they can be seen to encourage the type of films that were made by the independents, to help develop a cinema of socially aware film. Barton noted that the “Board saw its remit as the fostering of a diverse film culture that would embrace the idiosyncratic views of Bob Quinn as expressed in Atlantean, feminist filmmaking practices, creative documentary as well as work of directors from Northern Ireland” (p. 104). The small financial support of the board provided a platform from which directors such as Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan were able to receive assistance to launch their filmmaking careers. Both of these directors consequently grew to contribute major influences on Irish filmmaking in the 1990s and into the new millennium, the Second Wave. Neil Jordan's directorial debut film Angel (1982) was one of the first to receive funding from the Irish Film Board and it put down a marker for those to follow by its film content and style. Just as British Real Socialism films turned to focus on
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the individual and the personal rather than the collective so did many Irish films of this time as they were directly influenced by their neighbours. On the macro level of analysis the film is set among the high political and societal tension in Northern Ireland and the film takes the issues caused by this backdrop at the film’s fore. The narrative follows a musician who gets caught up in the Troubles and attempts to take matters into his own hands in a rhapsody of murder. Viewing the film on micro level of analysis, one can view that the film showed above all else how a person can lose their individuality when affected by the violence around them. The discourse created is one that refuses to be partial to either side of the conflict and it focuses instead on the character progressions of the individual, the person caught up between the conflicting ideologies. This centring on the individual depicts his struggles in the society around him relates to the audience in a more personal way showing how these traumatic events originate and provide a way to explain the violence. The film can be evaluated as performing cultural work by not taking any rigid stance on the ongoing conflicts where the film takes place, leaving it open for both sides to take in objectively which consequently provides a social awareness of the realities of the common person in Northern Ireland at this time and how they could be affected by their surroundings.
. Image B: Danny (Stephen Rea) losing control in Neil Jordan’s Angel (1982).
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Other works to appear with the financial support provided by the board also explored controversial issues in Irish society. Cathal Black's Pigs (1984) depicts the peripheral characters in Irish society as the viewer sees the protagonist Jimmy live with his alternative family. This alternative family which represents the marginalized in Irish society consists of a black musician, a prostitute, a drug-dealer, a psychotic and a senile old man in an old squatted building in inner city Dublin. Set in an environment where the lines between civil order and anarchy are lightly tread upon the film is another example of the sense of disenchantment towards the state of Irish society. On the macro level the film is seen taking place during a time when the Irish economy was at a low point and a recession had crippling effects on many people. The micro level of the film shows how a sub-culture and its eventual breakdown as the law prevails in breaking up this make-shift family represents the difficulties of the marginalized in the Irish nation during this time, finding it difficult to be accepted against the conventional attitudes of Irish society. Like Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire this is another film from the First Wave produces cultural work by bringing mindfulness to the conditions that affect diverse sub-cultures in Irish society and the challenges they face. The films of this First Wave, beginning with the independents in the 1970s until the end of the first Irish Film Board, as discussed above put film as a measure to analyse the state of Irish society and act as critical discourse on aspects of society at the time. The engagement with the topic of the Troubles (Angel and Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire) shed light on the effects on the innocent affected and also the difficulties in understanding such conflict and its formation. It can be seen to criticise the logic that people involved in the conflict use as well as their actions. Also, attention is given to a diversifying Irish culture that was rarely documented before (Pigs and Down the Corner). They showed how films could represent the marginalised characters of Irish society, characters that were new to the Irish social and cultural landscape. Film during this period helped to widen the scope of Irish society, opening up windows to aspects that have rarely been shown. This can be seen as a creation of new discourses on Irish life that film was able to produce and present, which consequently opened the potential to broaden the social reality of its viewers. Moving on to the reactivation and reformation of the Irish Film Board in 1993 this was a time that proved to shift from a cinema of self-questioning and promotion of awareness to
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cinema seen more as a commercial industry. O'Connell notes that there is a “marked difference between the cinematic material which emerged from the first Board [...] and that which is being produced since its reactivation in 1993, principally at the level of narrative form but also with regard to content” (p. 24). This difference proved to set the trend in Irish film for the immediate future and accordingly altered the type of discourses in film as well. 2.3 The Second Coming: Reformation of the Irish Film Board The reformation of the IFB can be viewed as a cornerstone in the success and the development into what is Irish film today. Ruth Barton on the significance of the reformation in 1993 remarked: “It was argued that this would not only be culturally important but that it would boost economy, then in the doldrums, and create considerable knock-on investment in jobs and services” (p. 105). The focus of the second IFB can be seen in its ambition to create an industry that would provide a financial return for those supporting the production of filmic work. This can be seen to learn from the failings that the first IFB encountered in the financial sector as the money going out didn't supply sufficient return for the board to remain operable. Consequently, this affected the meso level of film production as the film discourses of social issues became moulded into films which aimed to reap the most rewards financially rather than impacting with social issues. It pushed the notion that Irish filmmaking was becoming more of an industry rather than an art form. Two films that helped to encourage the reformation of the IFB were the British funded My Left Foot (1989) directed by Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992), both huge successes internationally they can been seen as templates for the new regime in Irish filmmaking with an added emphasis on the revenue earned from the works to justify investment. Other successful films including The Field (1990) by Jim Sheridan and The Commitments (1991) by Alan Parker also fortified a strong film culture establishing itself in Ireland, both being adaptions of works by Irish writers, John B. Keane and Roddy Doyle respectively. An increasing number of films during the 1990s were shaped in the mould of gripping dramas and comedies with big budgets and renowned actors playing the lead roles. The production of films like Michael Collins (1996) and The Butcher Boy (1997) exhibited the Irish film industry as one heavily influenced by Hollywood conventions and
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with the actors such as Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn and Julia Roberts in Michael Collins and Stephen Rea starring in The Butcher Boy the attainment of foreign investment was essential in making these films. Martin McLoone remarks of the pursuit of investors that “the danger is that, to attract financial support, such films [co-productions] propose a view of Ireland that is already familiar to international funders and which funders in turn believe audiences are likely to recognise and identify with” (2000, p. 114-115). The trouble in trying to please both investors and the vision of the filmmaking team is the compromises that have to be made in order to source a higher budget which may lead to a reinforcement of false images of Irishness. I will provide a more detailed analysis of films of the Second Wave in the next chapter that supports the claims that films were encouraged to produce easily recognizable Irish characters. At this point in Irish cinema one can view a reversal back to the influences of foreign visions of Ireland and away from the film culture of the First Wave that engaged with real issues in Irish life. In the goal of creating a vibrant film culture the films produced with the help of the IFB catered for international audiences to help increase sales. Kevin Rockett on this topic noted that “many films inevitably responded in the first instance to the demands of the international market-place in this regard, such films often reinforce rather than challenge the inherited stereotypes of the Irish in the cinema” (1999, p.24). The move away from socially aware films that dealt with issues of Irish society and towards the production of films with more global appeal led to, as mentioned before by Martin McLoone, “a “sanitized” cinema in which there are few opportunities to probe social tensions” (Casademont, 2010, p. 134). Despite the majority of filmmaking in the Second Wave being dominated by Hollywood type models of production there were also a small number of directors at the beginning of the 2000s who found space to develop film that revealed some issues of the era. A few directors to take contemporary subjects in their work are John Carney, Kieran Carney and Tom Hall. Examples of subjects in their works include paedophilia in Park (1999) by John Carney and Tom Hall, suicide in On the Edge (2001) by John Carney and immigration in Once (2006) also by John Carney. These films were mainly produced on lowbudgets financially and star up and coming and lesser known actors and actresses. O’Connell notes of these films that “the narrative and the aesthetic approach framing and structuring these films is less about the specific in terms of identity and more about the
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broader human preoccupation of individual themes…” (2010, p. 166). The films show that there still was a residual interest from filmmakers to gauge social issues in Irish society in this period which can be seen to grow into the Third Wave.
Image C: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in John Carney’s Once (2006). From this point moving into the current period of Irish film one can see how it has become, as Lance Pettitt would term, 'a cinema of national questioning'. Pettitt comments that “In a process of active transformation, film-making in Ireland has developed strategies to combat its subordinate status and it has produced a distinct film culture” (2000, p. 45). Written in 2000, the strategies which Pettitt mentioned can be seen to blossom in the most recent period. One can see the trend of commercial films in the Second Wave being countered by films in the Third Wave that engaged more with contemporary social issues. The socially aware discourses created on the micro level derive from the production background of the filmmaking process which on the meso level of analysis shows that the films are aimed for Irish society and are influenced heavily by the social issues in society as well. This closer relationship between the filmmaker and the subjects suggests the discourse created holds a more empathic relation to the social issues in Irish society. The fact that during the 2000s these smaller films constituted a minor discourse compared to
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the more dominant discourse during the Celtic Tiger showed that there was little attention to the social conditions of Irish society through film. However, in recent years these minor discourses are seen to blossom in the Third Wave as directors tackle sensitive subjects in contemporary Ireland in diverse styles. Before moving onto the next section I will gather the findings in this chapter which help to answer my research question. The analysis of the history of how filmmaking has originated and progressed in the Irish context showed how the function of film has changed throughout the last few decades. Of particular importance on the meso level of analysis is the background to production which showed that the films of the Second Wave were heavily influenced by the need to make a financial profit from the films. This showed that the socially aware films produced in the First Wave that created critical discourses on the micro level of the social issues of Irish society were replaced by “easily digestible narratives” in the Second Wave (O’Connell, 2010, p. 55). The consequence of this was that there were discourses of Irish life created in the Second Wave that didn’t represent the reality of this period and therefore created a social reality that concealed the social issues that affected parts of Irish society. This would suggest that the social issues were put aside for discourses that suggested to their audience that the issues were not serious. The influence then of discourses as ‘shaping the world’ and ‘enabling social reality’ can be seen during the Second Wave to help form an audience that was not aware of the issues in the society they live in. This lays an insight into the type of discourses created in the Second Wave and sets a foundation where in my research question I will answer how some films discourses in the Third Wave oppose the type of discourses created in the previous era. In the Third Wave, viewing the work such as John Michael McDonagh's highly entertaining black comedies to Gerard Barrett's gripping realist dramas, one can see recent films embracing issues in Irish society and creating critical discourses of these issues. In order to see how a selection of films of recent years have created a new and opposing discourse to that of the Second Wave I will examine how they conflict with dominant discourses from this Celtic Tiger period. The next chapter will help to answer my research question as it opens up the debate on what type of discourses were constructed during this period and the reasons for these constructions. How the discourses were created and also how entered the films of the period will help to illuminate the new and opposing discourse
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of the films of the Third Wave and how they approach social issues.
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3. Discourses of the Celtic Tiger Ireland In this chapter attention on the discourses of the Celtic Tiger Ireland provides a context to the issues in the films of my analysis in the Second Wave and shows how dominant discourses are constructed. This chapter also provides an account of what type of discourses are contested by some films in the Third Wave. As pointed out in the methodology section, when conducting a discourse analysis it is important to view how discourses are spread across different types of texts in order to see their overall significance and influence on a society. Gillian Rose quotes Nicholas Green when stating that “discourse is a coherent pattern of statements across a range of archives and sites” (2001, p. 198). Therefore I will be viewing how the ‘Celtic Tiger Discourse’ can be analysed through different sites in the era of the Second Wave. I begin with a sociological view of Ireland in this period that considers how Irish society has been transformed in the last few decades in order to consider the socio-cultural background (macro level) to the films being made during this period. I refer to Tom Inglis’s book Global Ireland (2008) in which he sets out the question: “What have been the effects for Ireland of having moved so rapidly from being a very traditional, insular, Catholic society to becoming one of the most open, globalized societies in the world?” (p. xi). To answer this question Inglis concentrates on the impact of the transformations in social and economic terms on popular culture and everyday life. The analysis of these social and economic transformations opens the possibility to view what influence these transformations had in how the social issues were presented in film discourses of this period. Inglis argues that through the influence of globalization Irish society opened itself up to foreign cultures and even despite this it has still retained Irish values and traits of community spirit, humorous self-deprecation and stoicism influenced by the Catholic Church (p. 253). However, Inglis claims also that the variety of Irishness has expanded: “Being Irish is becoming mixed with a multitude of other cultural representations, practices and lifestyles. The varieties of Irishness are increasing. At the same time, however, the way cosmopolitans adapt, present and perform their Irishness and other identities is becoming standardized” (p. 253). It seems that national differences have been commoditised in this standardization which Inglis terms as an “ongoing construction of personal identities and
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sense of self” (p. 254). It is therefore seen that Irish culture had been taken over by the influences of globalization that made it ever more simplified and attractive to Irish people themselves as well as also being an image sold to the rest of the world. Kieran Allen in his book The Celtic Tiger: Myth of a Social Partnership remarked when looking at the discourse of Ireland as a progressive and equal society that “Dominant ideologies typically work by masking conflicts of interest and by presenting their outlook as the most practical, rational and feasible for the good of society as a whole” (2000, p. 35). The image of a simplified Irish culture that was easy to access and the dominant discourses of Ireland as a progressive and equal society helps to define the Celtic Tiger discourse as one aimed to encourage the idea of a model society. However, returning to the statement in the introduction, Allen comments on idea of an equal Irish society: “The booming economy is supposed to have benefited the majority, but [has] left behind a residual category, the ‘socially excluded’” (p. 36). It is therefore seen that the discourse of Irish society conflicts the reality of the contemporary period. The constructions of these discourses are aided by the visual representations of Irish society in this period. The visual representations are seen in the film discourses of this period and even despite the IFB’s development into an institution that supports Irish filmmakers it nevertheless helped to reinforce dominant discourses of the Celtic Tiger. There were films that supported the claim that these dominant discourses failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the social problems that were present in Irish society. Kevin Rockett remarks on the types of films produced during this period: “The Post- 1987 film environment […] witnessed the restoration of the ascendency of the industrial model for film production over a culturally engaging critical cinema in Ireland” (1994, p. 127). This view is mirrored by Debbie Ging who remarked that “complexity, multi-vocality and diversity of viewpoints are jettisoned” in favour of an “over-simplistic worldview that requires minimum of cross-cultural understanding or critical engagement on the part of the viewer” (p. 192). Films such as The Snapper (1993), About Adam (2000) and Man About Dog (2004) are three films that show how ‘feel good’ narratives cover the social inequalities and issues that are present in these films. I chose to analyze these films as they typify how the themes of social issues are dealt with in film as well as the frequent comedy
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drama style that they are presented in. In addition they exemplify the progressions of the Irish Film Board becoming more a commercial institute. They use these topics in a manner that helps to push the narratives with the resulting conclusions displaying a feeling that social issues don’t have any damaging effect on the happiness of the people in the story. Seen to support Debbie Ging’s argument that Irish cinema “is moving steadily toward easy, globally – digestible narratives”, the use of film as a vehicle of social awareness and critical commentary diminished in the years of economic prosperity for the nation (Ging, 2002, p. 190). It seemed as if the notion that ‘ignorance is bliss’ took hold, with the general feel good atmosphere spreading into the film culture. To give an understanding of why these films displayed these attitudes I will look at some events in Ireland that help to explain the influence on some Irish films of these years. I will view how a dominant discourse was constructed by inspecting how the nation imaged itself through spectacles on the world stage. I will examine in the next section a few events that exemplify this dominant discourse. 3.1 Dominant Discourses of the Celtic Tiger This Ireland which stands so confidently on the brink of the 21st century and the third millennium is one our forebears dreamed of and yearned for; a prospering Ireland, accomplished, educated, dynamic, innovative, compassionate, proud of its people, its language, and of its vast heritage; an Ireland, at the heart of the European Union, respected by nations and cultures across the world - Mary McAleese’s presidential inauguration speech. (“We hope and pray, indeed we insist, that we have seen last of the violence”, 1997).
The image of Ireland and Irish society that many institutions of representation produced during the 1990s was one that attempted to change how the country was depicted compared to previous generations. The quote above from the then incoming president Mary McAleese signified the way Ireland was transforming its image. The intentions of this discourse wished to project the country as one that was at the top of the league in the growing fields of technology and also to cement its long reputation as a country with a merited tradition in the domain of arts and culture. The recycled trope of an idyllic, romantic and simple country full of lush green landscapes remained but was now placed beside an image of a cosmopolitan, fast past city living with an ever growing cyber culture and a young, well-educated and tech minded workforce. These representations of Ireland and Irish life were imaged through governmental institutions at the time such as the
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Toursim Board (Bord Failte) and IDA (Industrial Development Ireland): “The dichotomous images and temporalities underpinning the term Celtic Tiger are also reflected in the quite different representations of the 'romantic Ireland' propagated by Bord Failte and the thoroughly modern image of Ireland posed by the IDA” (Kuhling, 2007, p. 13). The 'romantic' images of Ireland are often associated with a pre-modern nation that is inhabited by a timeless people, one close to a land of myth and fairy tales that is ever prevalent to this day. The images referring to a more modern society contrast drastically, as the IDA put Ireland in the light of a nation accelerated into the cyber culture embedded in a neoteric goal of technological progression. One event that captured this two sided image being merged into one was Ireland’s hosting of the Eurovision song contest in 1994.
Image E: Michael Flatley and Jean Butler performing Riverdance at Eurovision 1994 The Eurovision event offered the opportunity to show the world the new image of Ireland as an economic and artistic frontrunner, one that essentially was an “audio-visual showcase to promote tourism and business” (Pettitt, 2000, p. 178). Lance Pettitt also remarked: “The set design at the Point was an eclectic mix of skyscrapers, lighting towers and Celtic imagery. Its scale, the way it was lit and filmed exuded graphic abundance, collar of the Republic’s economic self-confidence” (p. 177). This discourse constructed an image
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that the newly prosperous country wished the world to see them as. The interval performance of Riverdance led by Irish-Americans Michael Flatley and Jean Butler rubber stamped this new image with a mix of traditional Irish dancing with ballet and more contemporary dance forms. Pettitt seen the created discourse as a “post-modern, hybridized Irishness [which] relies on very fluid, some argue, vacuous notions of ‘celticism’” (p. 178). This newly constructed discourse is closely related to Michel Foucault’s notion of the influence of those in power in creating a dominant discourse. Foucault remarked that: Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true (Foucault, p. 131, 1977).
How those in power have the ability to project the discourse of the nation as they want rather than it actually is. It finds itself apparent here as the Tourism Board, IDA and the producers that organized the hosted Eurovision events all played their part in creating this discourse of the new successful Irish image. They find themselves in the status as those in charge, as Foucault remarked, ‘in saying what counts as true’. Fintan O’Toole states in the relation to the Celtic Tiger discourse of this period that “Booms always engender hysteria but what made the Irish one so extreme was that it was filling a void. The Celtic Tiger wasn’t just an economic ideology. It was also a substitute identity” (p. 3, 2010). This substitute identity was seen as filling a void which was created by the transformations in Irish society. The new Ireland needed a new way to image itself and it was through these events and political discourses which aided it’s construction and as it was a period that had not been experienced before in the nation it was taken without contest. This ‘regime of truth’ of Irish society headed by the governmental institutions mentioned above is extended also in visual representation, especially in the domain of film. The types of discourse which were prominent are apparent in these film texts where this new identity is seen next to the hysteria that idolized Irish society.
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3.2 The Snapper, About Adam and Man about Dog as examples of Celtic Tiger discourse in Second Wave film. The emergence of this ‘substitute identity’ remarked by Fintan O’Toole and Tom Inglis’s notion that there was a standardization of Irishness that were characterised by the Celtic Tiger discourse were strengthened by the film discourses of the Second Wave period. In this section I will show how these constructions were depicted in a few films and how the discourse dealt with social issues of the period. I begin with a film from the beginning of the Celtic Tiger, The Snapper (1993). This film is the second instalment of Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy novels, which also includes The Commitments (1991) and The Van (1996), adapted to film. Released in 1993, during the time the Irish economy was starting to peak in it can be seen as being a time when the nation was beginning to pick up the general feel good attitudes about themselves. The buoyancy of the era is replicated here in this comedy drama. The narrative centres on Sharon the daughter of a working-class family who becomes pregnant after a drunken encounter with her father’s friend, who also happens to be their neighbour. True to Doyle’s ability to capture the humour of North Dublin characters and their resoluteness, the film directed by British filmmaker Stephen Fears also shows how the narrative uses this humour as a central asset in the drama. The issues of pregnancy out of wedlock in a devout Catholic society and also that of adultery on the part of the older man who is married also lay beside the issue of alcohol abuse.
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Image F: Dessie Curley (centre) joking with his friends in the local pub in The Snapper Considering the social and cultural context that these issues take place, on the macro level of analysis, one can see how they can be labelled as issues of taboo in Irish society at the time. Analysing on the meso level we see that the script is written by the author Roddy Doyle, a native of Dublin who also grew up in middle-class surroundings similar to that of the Curley family who are at the centre of the story. One can consider the issues that Doyle brings up to be ones that are topical of the time. How they are depicted and dealt with also is influenced by the production team behind the creation of the film. The director, Stephen Frears, previously made films that engaged with social themes such as his acclaimed My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) that presented life in Britain for foreigners looking to set up business in the Thatcher period. The feel good narrative among the real hardships was a common trend found in British film and television around this period. This style is also applied in this film which was no doubt an influence from the British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) who helped to finance the work. One can see this influence on the meso level in the film’s production was centred on an established model developed in
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British cinema with the effect of the model that provided little engagement with the serious implications of the social issues that are presented in the films. The screenplay, despite capturing the wittiness and stoicism of working-class Dublin characters, also fails to present the reality of these situations for people and the real effects they contain. As Sharon becomes pregnant the controversy and anger is at first felt by her father, Dessie. The shame that she has put upon her family as well as the dispute surrounding the identity of the father takes a comedic turn of events that displays the notion that these issues hold no real seriousness in reality. When the identity of the father is revealed Dessie’s anger is shown through the humorous colloquial attitudes that present to the viewer an almost diversion away from the actual issue at hand and replace it with comic relief. This continues to the point where Dessie becomes an active participant in helping his daughter through the pregnancy that shows his unbounded commitment to his child. He is even seen joking among his friends in the pub about the situation, whereby the intake of alcohol becomes a symbol of merriment. Thus, the discourse of the actual issues of unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock are not critically addressed in the film text as humour comes in to play the part of masking the seriousness of the events. Therefore, on the micro level of analysis of what the film actually says about the issues, one can view how the film projects the image that these social issues are easily overcome with taking a comical attitude that helps to disguise the way these issues have a very real impact on the societies they are set in. The presence of passiveness towards social issues is also found in About Adam (2000), a film about one man, Adam, and his quest to seduce his soon to be wife’s two sisters simultaneously without anyone finding out. Set in a trendy, cosmopolitan Dublin breaking into the new millennium the film can be seen as representing the new attitudes towards love and relationships in Celtic Tiger Ireland. The social and cultural context of the film on a macro level can be seen to occupy the breaking away of the old traditions of religious Ireland with a more open and liberal outlook that shows the transformations of Irish society. On the meso level the background in production of the film shows, just as in The Snapper, the BBC as the main production company with financial assistance from the IFB as well as applying the comedy drama style again in this work. The two main actresses
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for Lucy and Laura in the film are played by an American (Kate Hudson) and an Englishwoman (Frances O’Connor) which highlights the goal of supporting commercially viable filmic work on the part of the IFB. This results in the sacrifice of authenticity when hearing the accents of these characters that suggests that the film is aimed to suit foreign audiences rather than an Irish one.
Image G: Adam and Lucy announce in front of her family that they’re getting married in About Adam The quick paced narrative is one which replicates Hollywood movies at the time which also has an effect on the image of Dublin that it creates. The Dublin it shows is one which celebrates consumption and is taken from the perspective of the successful class in Irish society. The protagonist drives a vintage Jaguar car; the scenes are mostly set in a variety of restaurants, shopping centres, the fitness centre or in the expensive homes and apartments of the members of the families. This focus on the new consumerist image of Ireland affected the film text by leading it to have little engagement with real issues of Irish
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society and instead portraying Irish life solely framed around prosperous middle to upperclass characters. This is seen in analysing the film on the micro level, as the film text has minimal effect on an Irish audience and can be considered little more than another Hollywood style rom-com with Ireland as its backdrop. The issues of sex and infidelity have no real critical engagement as the conclusion reveals no negative views or repercussions on the actions of the protagonist which suggests the Celtic Tiger discourse of a model society is sustained. The film constructs a utopian world where any actions by the protagonist seem to fall in his favour. The subject of his secret affairs is not treating his happiness as his wife even encourages him to not tell any secrets that may harm the relationship. He marries Lucy and the two other sisters, Laura and Alice, have found happiness without him, or rather have gained happiness through their sexual encounters with him. The narrative and conclusion can be summed up as a reflection on the general attitudes within Irish society at the time. The notion that ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’ is evident here as their trendy lifestyles are unharmed by any factors outside of them. In other words, the narrative shuns the nasty side of Irish life in Dublin and chooses to focus on the concerns of the ‘conspicuous winners’ of the Celtic Tiger as Brian McIlroy would term them (2007, p. 216). The narrow focus on one part of Irish society coupled with the intentions of production team to create a work that aimed at financial success, rather than an engaging dialogue with issues of Irish society, embodies the general discourse of the time. The film images a new cosmopolitan Irish society that replicates general Western cultures which leaves the film accessible to other Westernized societies around the world as something recognisable, attractive and easy to digest. Thus, it reinforces the standardized simple view of Irish society and Irishness as one influenced by the transformations during the Celtic Tiger period while also creating a discourse of Irish society in which social issues are either non-damaging or non-existent. The influence of the Celtic Tiger discourse can be found also Man About Dog (2004) which constructs another side of Irish society in the early 2000s Ireland. The narrative tells the story of three twenty something males from west Belfast (who are shown to be affiliated with an Irish identity rather than a British one) as they go south to the Republic of Ireland in search for a big win to pay their 50,000 euro gambling debt. Their journey takes
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them through a world of crime, drugs and debauchery as they search to enter their greyhound in games fairs and greyhound racing to raise the money to pay their debt. The macro issues which are apparent here are those of gambling and crime that can be seen to rise in the years during the Celtic Tiger and shows an obsession with easy money. On the meso level of the production one sees that the film was funded by the IFB, directed by an Irish director, Paddy Breathnach, and written by Irish screenwriter Pearse Elliot. The prominence of indigenous talent and funding shows the transition from The Snapper whose production and funding was mainly provided from a British source, here the direction of the film is produced by Irish sources which show how it has adopted the practices from the British tradition. This transition demonstrates the focus on scriptwriting that was more commercial and less concerned with Irish issues. The narrative replicates films similar to those made in Britain around this time such as Guy Pierce’s popular Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) but with a more whimsical presentation of Irish life that lacks the grit shown in the British films. The use of easily recognisable tropes of Irish characters from the use of the Northern Irish accent and the main protagonist’s name, Mo Chara (which means ‘my friend’ in Gaelic), to the way the Irish traveller community is represented as comically dangerous gun wielding crooks. These tropes again, like in The Snapper and About Adam, help to reinforce a standardized vision of Irishness and Irish society.
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Image H: Paulsy, Mo Chara and Scud trying their luck at the bookmakers in Man About Dog On the micro level, apart from Mo Chara’s father’s utterance about betting that “It’s an illness”, there is no real critique of it or that of the criminal activities that are a part of it. Instead in the conclusion to the film the three main characters win the money that they needed which suggests that there is no real harm in it in the end. The film shows a discourse of the serious issues of gambling and the criminal world behind it to be innocent fun in the narrative and has no damaging effects on the characters who take part. The danger to their lives from the bookmaker they owed the debt to and the travellers who were hunting them down to take their winning greyhound that was stolen from them was covered by the use of humour and slapstick comedy. In addition, each dubious event that the protagonists found themselves in was supported by the non-diegetic leitmotif of fast paced sprightly banjo picking and whistling, which helped to reinforce the light-hearted approach to these issues. Overall these three films demonstrate how Celtic Tiger discourse found itself in the films of the Second Wave. Although there were opportunities for younger filmmakers to realise their works the dominant discourse remained in producing the audience friendly comedy dramas that didn’t evoke any critique on social issues in Irish society, and with
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that, any awareness of the realities behind the issues. Pat Brereton in National Identity and the Commercial Imperative in New Irish Cinema marks of the lack of attention to social issues that “for all their imaginative and seductive style the films, McLoone contends, could be accused of smug complacency: the social problems that global consumerism throws up cannot simply be imagined out of existence” (p. 7, 2006). In the analyses here one can see that the intention of the works were mainly to recoup production costs and to make a profit from their theatrical release. The tables below (Fig. 1) show that in the different areas of analysis of the film text that help to build discourses the tendency of tropes and narrative models through the use of themes, images, soundtrack. In addition to this, the tendency of happy endings in the narratives can be considered to exemplify the “smug complacency” that helped to imagine the social issues out of existence. The social issues that were approached in the films, those of teenage pregnancy, alcohol abuse, breaking away from conservative views on relationships and sex, gambling and crime were ones that had relevance in a changing Irish society. However, the films didn’t portray any of the issues in sharp critical light. Instead they were used as themes from which the jokes and comical events played off and helped the narrative progress. One can see from the analysis the way that Irish society was imaged and that there was a discursive formation across different sites that portrayed Ireland as a successful and happy nation with no serious social or cultural concerns visible which would damage the image of the country. I do not claim that these type of discourses found themselves in all the films of this period but the analysis here does demonstrate how the Celtic Tiger discourse found itself influencing the way films were produced and also on the mirco level of the film text as well. Film
Narrative
Image
Sound/Music
The Snapper (1993)
Shows social issues but no critical stance on them. Narrative turn and conclusion depict a happy society without being seriously unaffected by the social issues in Irish society. Story of contemporary notions of romance in
Colourful suburban Dublin. Lively pub culture. Busy shopping malls. Warm cosy household. No presentation of uncomfortableness.
Upbeat rock music as film soundtrack accompanying scenes. Help to distract away from the issues on screen.
Shows the wealthy upper class of Ireland.
Jazz big band intro. Romantic ballads sung a
About Adam (2000)
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Man About Dog (2004)
Celtic Tiger Ireland. Infidelity, hedonism, individualism and egotism are character traits shown without criticism. Hollywood style happy ending. 3 twenty something men search to make easy money in gambling to pay off debt with gangster. Shows no critical view on gambling and meddling in crime. Happy ending where it seems no lessons were learned for the protagonist.
Cosmopolitan Dublin. Restaurants, music venues, expensive apartments, gyms, cafes and bookshops are locations frequented.
karaoke. Romantic orchestral mood music.
Sub-urban Belfast but mostly rural Ireland shown with clichéd characters. Quick paced comedy with smooth continuity between scenes.
Quick paced soundtrack that solidifies the image of simple rural setting and comical clichéd characters.
(Fig. 1) The findings in this chapter aided my research as they showed how discourse is created over multiple sites from the way Ireland imaged itself in the Eurovision spectacle and through tourism images to the way Irish society is presented in films of the Second Wave era. It also showed the reason for the type of discourse created as Ireland tried to reimage itself into the globalised world. Foucault remarked that each society has its own “regime of truth” and thus so one can see here the dominant discourse of Celtic Tiger Ireland as the ‘truth’ that was re-occurring. How films of the Third Wave can be seen to oppose this discourse and help to open up aspects of Irish society which were absent in film discourses will be answered in the next chapter. These films show that there is a change in how films present and engage with social issues in Irish society and, by doing so, provide an awareness and critical discourse of them. I will see by analysing recent films how they, referencing Paul Doyle, put a “perspective on the chaotic present” and how “this modern surge in Irish filmmaking comes not in spite of the nation’s circumstances but because of them” (2013). In addition, I will see if Debbie Ging’s wish for an increase of films that are more “specific to Irish experience” (p. 24, 2002). In answering these questions I hope to prove that the films do ‘cultural work’ by providing critical discourses on social issues.
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4. Driving Cultural Policy: The Cultural Work of Recent Irish Film. In the last chapter I have seen how Celtic Tiger discourse influenced how films presented and talked about social issues. How films in the Third Wave oppose this Celtic Tiger discourse by providing more diverse perspective on Irish life and the issues in the society will be analysed in this chapter. Progressing from a marginal art form in the 1970s Irish film has established itself in the contemporary period as one of the more important sectors not only in national culture but also in economic terms as well. Lenny Abrahamson, considered as one of best acclaimed directors to come out of Ireland since the turn of the century, remarked in an interview last year: “I think there’s an opportunity now. I think agencies like the Arts Council and generally artists in general should be driving cultural policy in the country” (“InConversation with Abrahamson”, 2014). Alongside this, Michael Noonan, the Irish Minister of Finance, stated on the status of the film industry in Ireland in his 2014 budget speech: “The film industry is very important to modern Irish culture and to the economy, not just in terms of jobs but also indirectly through tourism promotion” (Noonan, 2014). The discussion of the progressions in the production of film in Ireland in previous chapters with these two quotes in mind one can get an idea how film has grown from a marginal art form in the 1970s to one being an integral part of the culture, having impacting influences on Irish life. The view of film in Ireland as not only influential culturally but also economically shows the importance it has in creating discourses on Irish life and the power that they hold in creating discourses that shape the social reality of their audiences. In terms of production the financial support on large-scale productions like Calvary and The Guard and the smaller scale budgets for the up and coming directors like Berry and Barrett show the diverse spread of filmmaking in Ireland. Keeping in mind Abrahamson’s quote above I will see how the filmmakers of these films can be seen as ‘driving cultural policy’, taking themes common in modern day Irish society as inspiration for their works they play an active role in how their audience perceive social issues. Abrahamson’s remarks about the role of film having an influential part to play in Irish society can be seen to build a discourse in promoting social awareness of issues. In my analysis of the films I consider on the meso level of analysis the background of the filmmakers and its importance on the
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narratives and the eventual results that can be viewed on the micro level; what the films are saying about the issues they engage with. The consideration of remarks by critics in media will help to show the reception of these films which can be connected to the concept of cultural work that I use. In summary, the results of the analyses will help to form a clearer view of Ireland and Irish culture and society through the lens of the works under inspection. To start with I take the films presented in a realist manner, Abrahamson’s most recent work explicitly involving Irish society, What Richard Did (2013), Frank Berry’s I Used to Live Here (2014) and Gerard Barrett’s Pilgrim Hill (2013) and Glassland (2014). 4.1 Over the Hill and Towards the Land where Richard Used to Live: This group of films show how the realist style of filmmaking engages with social issues to produce critical discourses of Irish society. From the titles alone one recognizes the connection to place and environment in all bar one of the films, What Richard Did. As the viewer meets these protagonists at the beginning of the films they have reached a stage in which they are moulded by their surroundings as their attitudes and characteristics become evidently rooted to their background. The narratives hit a point where the protagonists are confronted with a situation that they were not prepared for, a situation where they encounter feelings that were perhaps buried down beneath the protection of social norms they have been accustomed to. These films can be viewed as an awakening of emotions against the society they live in, a society which seems to be a product of the failures of the Celtic Tiger. Consequently, they can be seen as creating discourses that promote awareness of the social issues that affect people in contemporary Irish society. 4.1.1 What Richard Did Lenny Abrahamson’s film can be seen as the final chapter of a trilogy of films exploring the different characters Irish life after his debut Adam and Paul (2004) and its follow-up Garage (2007). These two previous films can be noted to be part of the beginning of a reactionary discourse to the Celtic Tiger that was emerging in the early to mid-2000s. As in the previous films the protagonist is presented in a social class and within a certain geographical location in Ireland. Just as he explored the squalidness and desperation of lower-class inner city junkies (Adam and Paul) and the loneliness and despondency of
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living alone in rural isolation (Garage) so does he here probe another sinister side of Irish society. The focus is now on a member on the upper echelons of Irish society in shape of a well-to-do, South Dublin county teenager who studied at a prestigious private school, which can be seen as a fictional version of the real life Blackrock College.3 The macro context of class division and the sense of entitlement that came with the new privileged class are played out here in the narrative. The film narrative opens to present the everyday life of Richard Karlsson (Jack Reynor), a rich, upper-class, confident and recently turned secondary school graduate who, it seems, has the world at his feet. The film builds a world in which he is an alpha male figure; surrounded by friends and female interests, it seems nothing can bring him down and hinder his progress. In his successful attempts of stealing the girlfriend of a teammate, Conor, he comes to a confrontation with the now angry ex-boyfriend who sees Richard as the menace ruining the happiness of others. Halfway through the narrative turns as we see Richard’s vanity and self-belief converted into a violent outbreak fuelled by alcohol and pride when feeling threatened that he might lose his new girlfriend. He kicks Conor in the head with the aid of his friends outside a house party which results in his death from brain damage. This scene has an eerily similar resemblance to the true story of Brian Murphy who in 2000 was beaten by four recently graduated Blackrock boys on a night out in Dublin which also resulted in death from brain damage.4 It is seen to be the basis of Kevin Power’s novel Bad Day in Blackrock (2008) which directly influenced the script of What Richard Did. On a meso level the relation to real events is one thing that resonates through these films. This opposes the films that were influenced by the Celtic Tiger discourse which used stereotypes and cliched themes, in this film the issues and events are uncharacteristic in Irish film representation. In addition, the funding of the film comes from the IFB and is produced by an Irish company, Element Pictures which shows that there is a move towards film engaging with Irish experience.
3
South Dublin is known as one of the more affluent areas in Ireland which also houses Blackrock College, a prestigious private school of the children of the Irish social elite. 4 http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/30-seconds-of-madness-that-led-to-brian-murphysdeath-26018702.html
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Image H: Richard’s father breaking down as he learns of what his son had done in Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did (2011). On the critical micro level the character development of Richard through the film makes it tough to decipher whether in the end he regrets the actions that he has done or at the very least if he is really affected by them. In the closing scene the camera lingers on Richard as he sits quietly in his room studying for university, nothing seems to be bothering him. The persona that is seen at the beginning has perhaps become back to define him or maybe he has changed and learned from his actions. Throughout the film we are left with clues that Richard is incapable of feeling remorse as he goes out of his way to steal the girlfriend of another. Another scene is of Richard, after breaking up with his girlfriend and in the middle of dealing with the death of Conor, hanging around a makeshift fire in a field with younger teenagers. He arrives bringing them beer and eventually in the end seduces a younger girl. It could be seen him trying to re-attain the power he had before the events and go back to old ways erasing the ordeal from his conscience. From these actions it is difficult for the viewer to attach any sympathetic allegiances to his character and without clear signs through language his actions captured by the camera are all the viewer can judge him on. One intense scene when Richard is left alone in his parent’s holiday house portrays the helplessness of his situation as he is seen screaming and hitting himself in
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silent surroundings. The open-ended narrative closure leaves it to the audience to decide how and if he has changed. The style in which it is made can be seen to be a part of two traditions between the American and European as Jim Carroll remarked that it draws on “American teen-noir such as Carrie or Heathers, and European dramas of group dysfunction such as those by Vinterberg and Haneke” (Carroll, 2012). The dreary background of the gloomy windswept beaches and residential areas in which the narrative takes place depicts an image of Ireland that many outside would not recognise and one which contrasts with the happy and colourful Irish society as seen in the films of the Second Wave. This bleakness matches the narrative well, emphasising the tragedian drama playing out slowly within it. Carroll described it as a film “which ultimately answers those questions about how artists tell the story of modern Ireland in a far clearer, sharper way than any panel discussion” (Carroll, 2012). The critical aspect which Carroll point to here as answering questions clearer than any panel discussion shows the discourse created is one that shows film opening ways to view contemporary Irish society. In addition to the real events the story can be associated with it can be viewed on a micro level as a political allegory and moral drama that grips issues of privilege and side-stepping justice in a period of economic turmoil in Ireland. The discourse created sheds light on a harsh reality of contemporary Irish society that opposes the image created of Ireland by the Celtic Tiger. 4.1.2 Pilgrim Hill Gerard Barrett’s debut work echoes the poignancy given by Abrahamson’s work in spreading awareness of social issues through film. Strikingly similar thematically with Abrahamson’s Garage it sheds light on the macro issues of the solitude and seclusion of life in rural Ireland. It reveals the effects of the Celtic Tiger period in contemporary times on the rural community. Filmed in a social realist/faux-documentary style it alternates between scenes of the camera following the protagonist doing his everyday chores with those of him sitting in front of the lens answering questions unbeknownst to the viewer. Jimmy Walshe is a farmer in his mid-forties taking care of his farm and bed-ridden father (whom the audience never sees). It’s a situation familiar to many living in the rural
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countryside of Ireland. His days are uneventful and sombre; the camera catches every little detail that suggests his life is one of basic requirements from his worn-out car and raggedy clothing to his lunch consisting of tea and ham sandwiches. In the production level of the filmmaking the film was funded and produced by the IFB on a budget suggested to be lower than €5,000. The director comes from the same area where the film takes place and on true social realist style the actor that plays Jimmy (Joe Mullins) is actually in real life a farmer who, a few weeks before the filming began, lost his father. These elements add to the intensity of performance and the realness of the issues approached in the film.
Image I: Jimmy in reflection as he is coming to terms that he must kill his cattle from Gerard Barrett’s Pilgrim Hill (2011). The narrative progresses sluggishly as the viewers are taken through Jimmy’s daily tasks. He meets few people during his schedule and when he does the conversations are brief and uninteresting. Like in What Richard Did the camera does most of the talking where the dialogue lacks information; the mundaneness is broken only by the brief segments of Jimmy conversing to the screen in the interview style set-up. The topics of these one-way conversations are mainly questioning how Jimmy deals with life in his rural setting, his loneliness and what he hopes of the future. When the film hits a turning point as
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Jimmy learns that his cattle must be put down because of a dangerous disease, and at the same time his father dies, the weight of emotions that seemed to be buried under his docile nature reveal a much heavier truth to the issues he faces every day. It’s hard for the viewer not to feel sympathetic to the character who seems gentle and defenceless to these events. Only through these events does Jimmy come to face himself, questioning gently near the end when pondering on his life: “If I were to die and meet the person I could have been?” The lack of hope pushes the severity of the bleak reality and doesn’t let the viewer escape without coming away with a sharp shock to their perception of life in rural Ireland and that of rural life in general the world over. On a micro level the film can be viewed as commentary on an Ireland that has embraced modernisation and globalism without taking care of those who are unable to adjust themselves to the rapidly changing society. Jimmy, left with his future in doubt has no optimism towards a life without his farm and livelihood; he can be seen as part of the marginalized that Mark O’Connor called in his manifesto to be represented in Irish film. The lack of confidence in himself is shown in a scene when a younger friend tries to convince him to go to Dubai with him to ‘make a fortune’ Jimmy replies half sarcastically “Sure what can I do but only milk cattle!” The harsh truth of many is played out in front of the camera, spreading awareness of such issues and silently calling for action to change these situations. Jason Coyle considers it as a “film of our times, looking at a country bereft of direction. It captures the feeling that farming was one of our indigenous industries ignored while we chased the housing dream. Now that the hangover has come this is what’s left; a broken industry full of broken men” (Coyle, 2013). Like what Jim Carroll remarked of What Richard Did it is critically received as presenting Irish society as it wasn’t before and by doing so helping to build a discourse that opposes previous representations. The film’s success is illustrated in the positive feedback from many film critics, none more endearing than Alice Butler’s appraisal: Barrett composes a complex, tender portrait of vulnerability which, inspired as much by neorealism as by Irish films like Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage, draws on the harsh reality of rural life, particularly within the context of a modern, often indifferent world. Winning several awards since its premiere last year, this film is nothing short of a triumph for its young director (Butler, 2013).
The critical view on the state of Irish society is seen again in this film. The opportunity
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given to an inexperienced filmmaker shows the IFB helping to give voice to films whose discourses represent the repressed in society, enabling to alter social reality by providing awareness of social issues. 4.1.3 I Used To Live Here The debut feature film by Frank Berry follows the trials and tribulations for teenagers growing up in working-class regions; here the location is North Dublin. On a meso level in the context of production the film is produced by an independent company, Write Direction Films, this shows that alongside the IFB there is also initiative to spread awareness of social issues on a smaller scale. Berry’s previous experience behind the camera is in documentary film where he is noted for his acclaimed Ballymun Lullaby (2011), an inspirational insight into how music teacher, Ron Cooney, transformed the lives of school children in one of Ireland’s toughest areas to grow up in. There are evident influences from the documentary style and Ballymun Lullaby itself as the camera follows Amy, a thirteen year-old secondary school student, as she tackles everyday issues of her environment. The strong emphasis on the social issues in the narrative comes from director, Frank Berry, living in the area for an extended period of time prior to making the film, giving him inspiration from real people for his characters and the themes dealt with in the society. I Used to Live Here engages with the issues in Irish society of teen suicide clusters that Berry first encountered from an article in the Irish Times titled “Breaking the Ripple Effects of Suicide” written by Tony Bates, the director of Headstrong - The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (Bates, 2011). Although I aim to move away from reading the films by the intention and design of the filmmakers to assess the cultural work one can note that the motivation behind the works lead to a closer relation to the social issues and thus create a discourse which is based on actual events. Berry remarks on his reasons for making the film: I really wanted to put something up on the screen because I felt the reality of when a suicide tragedy occurs in a community and the effect it can have on other members of that community and to other young people in crisis, I just felt really strongly that this needed to be common knowledge (Berry, 2015).
The veracity of the story is even more heightened when considering that the whole acting
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cast were locals from the area who were familiar to these issues in their society. The protagonist, Amy, is followed by the camera, quite literally in some cases. The framing of the narrative allows the viewer to see the world of the teenager from her point of view without comment or interruptions. It has the effect of bringing the audience into her world, causing a more sympathetic viewpoint of the issues shown; building a discourse on social issues that attempts to show the reality of them. The people she meets and the conversations she has reveal her world piece by piece as her story unravels and becomes denser with each interaction. We learn of the fact that her mother had died not so long ago and that she lives alone with her father. We also are let into the lives of those closest to her, her father and his news of a baby from another woman and Dylan who has issues with local bullies and at home with his step-father. The barren dialogue is filled by the weight of these seemingly innocuous scenes that become ever more substantial as the viewer is led ever more deeply into the narrative.
Image J: The camera focuses in on Amy as she is talking to Dylan in Frank Berry’s I Used to Live Here (2015). The turning point of the narrative is the suicide of local boy in the community. The death of the boy, who we see her conversing with in the supermarket near the beginning,
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seems to effect the youth most of all as they all mourn, sincerely or otherwise, of his death. “He’s going to regret it” one girl says as they visit the bridge from where he jumped, “Sure he can’t, can he? You can’t regret something if you’re already dead” another replies cynically. This scene presents how in the narrative the youth are trying to make sense of and explain why this teenage took his life as the difficulties they have in understanding such situations. Berry stated that “as an audience, adults and young people can sit down and watch the film and take something from it that’s true and real but not actually be depicting anything that actually happens. In this way we could use it as a discussion point” (Berry, 2015). The intention of the filmmaker is again clear in this quote as he shows the difficulties of conversation on screen he wants the viewer to be affected to the point they feel comfortable to talk about issues more openly. Berry further emphasizes his point in saying “I think that we need more young people to be aware that there’s a reason why they don’t feel great which comes through awareness and discussion and relate to it in their own lives” (Berry, 2015). The use of the film as a ‘discussion point’, as Berry says, and as one that creates awareness of the issues resonates with the concept of cultural work, as it brings the viewer into the world of those suffering from these issues. The narrative closing sets a seal on the intentions and statements that Berry vocalizes in his interview. By showing Amy balanced on top of the bridge it seems she is ready to jump as all the recent events in her life seems too much to take. As the viewer expects her to be found deceased we instead hear her answering her father’s phone call and they are reunited. The character of Amy through the narrative progresses past the hardships in her life and comes out stronger; she shows the way to overcome these fractious feelings by calling for help instead of staying in silence. However, as a final twist the camera steadies on Dylan as he looks straight into the camera, the viewer can see that he is standing on top of the bridge in the closing scene. The unforeseen incident emphasises the point that one should always suspect those in the background who don’t call for help, and shows that silent cases are the ones who need it the most. The closing scene emphasis that even after this film has ended there are people like Dylan who are also ‘on the edge’ and contemplating about suicide as a way out. Overall on this micro level the issues that are discussed in the narrative and how they are imaged are shown to be ever present. The
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comments of the director himself and the way that the issue of suicide is depicted add to the critical discourse of the situation in Irish society at the moment where help of these issues seems to be lacking. This mirrors the narrative and framing of life in Pilgrim Hill and What Richard Did which show another side of Irish society which has been missing in film representation and thus helps to build an opposing discourse to that prominent in the Celtic Tiger. The discourse of Irish society as one facing serious social issues in the contemporary period is further reinforced by Gerard Barrett’s second film, Glassland. 4.1.4 Glassland On the meso level of analysis, the film, like What Richard Did, was funded by the IFB and produced by Element Pictures. In addition, similarly to Pilgrim Hill and I Used to Live Here the film grew organically from the director’s experiences of living in a location where there were troubling issues. The friendships of people made by Barrett in these societies gave a personal insight into how these issues effect the average person, here the issue of alcoholism in the working class family shown. This is an issue that is often represented through prejudicial images and humorous stereotypes in much fiction inside and outside of Ireland but is here approached from a different perspective. By focusing on the victims around those troubled by alcoholism rather than the alcoholic herself the discourse created by the film takes a unique position in filmmaking, one that is considered, according to David Gorman, as “something totally untapped” in previous depictions of alcoholism (Gorman, 2014). What Barrett saw in the areas of Dublin where he lived among these people was the dilemma of children parenting their parents. It can be seen socially as a counterpoint to Abrahamson’s What Richard Did, as John (also played by the actor of Richard, Jack Reynor) bears the responsibility of his mother’s issues in contrast to Richard’s parents taking care of the trouble their son has done. By way of framing the characters he puts the audience in their shoes and shows how difficult it is to cope with such burdens, thus providing a discourse which produces an awareness that builds understanding and empathy of the problems that occur in lower social classes.
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Image K: John with his mother Jean on the streets of their neighbourhood in Gerard Barrett’s Glassland (2015). In this narrative John is seen living a lonely life with his only friend Shane moving abroad in search for work and a better life. The way the world is presented in Glassland is bleak. The attentiveness of the camera catches every detail, from John having to put water in the milk carton for his cereal to his serious gazes of worry towards his mother’s bedroom door in the morning, not knowing whether she is home or drunk somewhere on the street. The narrative structure captures the despondency of the lives of the characters it is held up by. John is stuck in a world where he can’t leave, unlike Shane, as he must take care of his mother and be there for his abandoned disabled brother. The only way out, it seems for John, is to turn to the dark underworld of crime to earn the money he needs for his mother to cure the disease and to bring some normality back in his family together again. The desperate measures that John must dive to are seen to be his only option. The narrative shows a critical view on aspects of Irish society such as the absence of a government programme without payment that will help Jean overcome her alcoholism. It is John, the
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individual, who must take matters in his own hands which critically portrays the state of Irish social support systems. This portrayal, however depressing it seems, is one that is a reality for many and provides awareness to these situations in society. The realness of the presentation of Irish life is observed by Rory Cashin as the film presents “Dublin neither as a glittering metropolis nor a drug-infused sink-hole, but actually as it really is” (Cashin, 2015). From this description one can acknowledge the way this film as well as the others analysed, present an image of the country that is far from the romantic or happy society that was often found in previous illustrations during the Second Wave. Cashin further remarks in his review of the impact of the themes in Glassland in saying “This really is Irish cinema at its best, a truly transcendent and palpable experience shedding glorious light on an issue all too relevant” (Cashin, 2015). The comments of Cashin like those of critics on What Richard Did and Pilgrim Hill show these films to represent a part of Irish society that has been missing and help to build discourses on social issues which were concealed in previous films. The micro level of analysis shows the critical view the film takes on aspects of Irish society by the way the issue of alcoholism effect people and the little help they receive to overcome it. The narrative and the way the story is told visually and aurally contrasts starkly with those analysed during the Second Wave. Overall in these films there is a thread linking them on the three levels of critical discourse analysis. They all respond to the macro context of the socio-cultural background by providing narratives and images of issues in Irish society. On the meso level of the production the common theme of directors having spent time in the socio-cultural environment that the films are based shows a factor of ethnographic research done to aid the story told, with even What Richard Did taking inspiration from a real life event. The support financially from the IFB in three of the films shows that there is investment in socially aware film. On the question to how films oppose to the Celtic Tiger discourse of the Second Wave one can see on the micro level the films produce a critical discourse of the social issues in contemporary Ireland. The similar ways of presenting the discourse on micro level are seen in the sections of narrative, image and sound/music which I referred to in the analyses can be found in the table (Fig. 2) on the next page. Viewing the consistencies
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of how social issues are presented is clear to see that there is a discursive formation that ties these films together in the manner that the discourses are created using similar methods in these sections as well as in the production of these films. Film
Narrative
Image
Sound/Music
What Richard Did (2012)
Follows a rich teenager and his struggles of coming to terms with murder. Shows the dark side of upper class Irish that escapes punishment. Allegory of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Critical of elitist attitudes. Open end questioning if lessons were learned.
Windy, grey backdrop of South Dublin. Lengthy still shots of surroundings. Captures the bleakness of modern day Ireland.
Solemn piano melodies. Silences in individual scenes. Sound of nature in rural scenes.
Pilgrim Hill (2013)
Shows a farmer struggling to survive in a challenging economic period. Representative of the marginalized in postCeltic Tiger Ireland. Closes with protagonist left with no prospects or hope in the future.
Countryside and rural landscape in South of Ireland. Still framed shots capturing mundane surroundings. Interview style set up for protagonist speaking.
Frequent silences. Piano and strings for intense scene near the end.
I Used to Live Here (2014)
Depicts causes and effects of teenage suicide in Irish society. Shows the pressures of youth and struggles of working class families. Open ended narrative leaves issue of suicide still needing attention.
Working-class suburban Dublin. POV and documentary style camera shots that put viewer into the scenes.
Minimal musical soundtrack. Piano and strings for dramatic effect. Mostly diegetic sound of environment.
Glassland (2014)
Shows the effects of addiction in family life. The grim prospects of youth in Irish society. Critique of health care system. Offers hope for escape and better future in closure.
Working-class suburban Dublin. Long still images. Close-ups of the protagonist’s emotions. Captures cold Irish weather environment.
Long silences. One intimate scene between mother and son with ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell.
(Fig. 2)
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4.2 Crude Emblems of Irish Discontent: McDonagh’s provoking Black Comedies. In the last section I explored how low budget productions produced critical discourses on social issues in similar ways through their film styles. Here, I view how the films of John Michael McDonagh also produce critical discourse by provocation and dark humour. Donald Clarke, one critic provoked by McDonagh’s work, remarked about Calvary (2014) that “It seemed to me broad, cartoonish and facile in its structure. Every character apart from Brendan Gleeson’s — the priest given a week to live — was nothing more than a crude emblem for some Irish discontent” (Clarke, 2014). The characters in both The Guard (2011) and Calvary can be seen as hyper realistic Irish stereotypes that may be labelled as these crude emblems of Irish discontent. In approaching the issues of drug crime, murder, paedophilia and atonement McDonagh takes the stance of satirizing the situations and characters that are involved. This can be seen with the intention of provoking the viewer for a response, like that of the Irish Times film reviewer Donald Clarke who I quoted above. McDonagh stated that in conceiving the film Calvary he specifically wanted to intervene in how people thought about people in their society: “The idea for the film came about during The Guard when Brendan [Gleeson] and I talked about how terrible it must be for someone to walk down the street and because of what you’re wearing you’re immediately judged in a sinister way” (Crummy, 2014). The role that film can have in opening dialogue on social issues is remarked by McDonagh after winning the Ecumenical prize at the Berlin Film Festival: “I think they’re trying to encourage films that deal with those mature themes, which is a good thing I suppose. We don’t really see them anymore, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to make Calvary” (O’Hara, 2014). To note here is the intention of the discourse created by Calvary to change peoples’ minds about certain prejudices that the priesthood now suffers from, in turn looking to encourage reflection and awareness that one should not judge people just by their appearance and the associations tainted by others. The Guard can also be viewed in this manner of changing peoples’ minds as it takes a subversive, rude and racist police officer who, at first, is seen to be crooked and uninterested in his profession and turns him into a hero figure by the end. The genre of black comedy and the parodying of events can be thus viewed as a framework from which the filmmaker uses for its pleasing effect by way of
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humour to soften the seriousness of the topics it discusses. Starting with The Guard I will see how these films entice the viewer into creating consciousness of the society around them and oppose the Celtic Tiger discourse of the Second Wave. 4.2.1 The Guard McDonagh’s debut feature film follows an Irish middle-aged police officer (Brendan Gleeson) who has to tackle an international drug ring on the coast of his small town with the help of an African-American FBI officer (Don Cheadle). On a macro level the most overt themes that the film explores are that of drug crime, racism and police corruptions which are issues relevant to the contemporary period as Ireland has become a multi-cultural society which also has rising drug crime since the beginning of the Celtic Tiger. On the meso level of the production background the film can be seen to follow previous bigger budget films made in Ireland as alongside the IFB it receives funding from the UK. However, like the realist films analysed in the chapter before, the director, although from London, has a connection to the location where the film is set with a parent from the area. As an Englishman of Irish parents his view of Irish society can be considered an insider/outsider one which allows a different perspective in the discourse created. The issues in the film are presented through black comedy and are taken rather light-heartedly as the audience is shown the humorous as well as the serious side. Through the protagonist, Gerry Boyle, the viewer recognizes and aligns the character into a certain place in Irish society as the racist, corrupt police officer; however these traits are shown in a way that seduces the viewer into a sympathetic allegiance with him. The subversive jokes and comments towards the FBI agent including one when informed who the culprits of the drug shipments are: “I thought only black lads are drug dealers?” Boyle embodies these controversial topics of corruption and racism and mocks them with humour by not taking himself seriously with such issues and delivering some contentious remarks such as when replying to the condemning of his views: “I'm Irish. Racism is part of my culture”. Antagonistic comments such as these take on the form of questioning them through the narrative, as David Bordwell notes that “Narratives exploit proclivities, habits, and skills we take for granted—sharpening them, twisting them, and subjecting them to confirmation or questioning” (p. 3). The narrative also subtly deals with
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old attitudes and characteristics of Irish society such as the Americanisation of Irish culture with various remarks towards the use of language, for example when English drug criminal mutters abrasively “I hate that - Americanisms” when, Sheehy, the corrupt police official says “We’re good to go”. Another reference to the influence of American culture arises when McBride describes an unknown body of a deceased as a “John Doe”, Boyle replies sarcastically “He’s a John Doe, is he?”
Image L: Sergeant Gerry Boyle sharing a drink with FBI agent Wendell Everett in John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard (2012). The film presents the audience a character that they recognised, aligned and evaluated their allegiance to in the narrative and then reveal the judgments to be not as clear as at the beginning. This is captured as Wendell remarks at one point: “You know, I can't tell if you're really motherfuckin' dumb, or really motherfuckin' smart”. It becomes apparent through a deeper and more personal perspective of the sergeant that he is a more competent and caring individual compared to when first presented. Shown by his interactions with his dying mother and visiting the wife of the murdered police officer the prejudices that he embodied before are shown to be mere facades used to make fun of the
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FBI agent. This can also be seen to reveal the common misconceptions of Irish people themselves to foreign audiences. Returning to the idea that discourses shape the perceptions of our world by creating ways to view it so can this film be viewed in its capacity to recreate the social world and invert its characters to encourage contemplation of the actual realities that are being referred. On the micro level the film’s discourse uses subversive humour and provocation to spread awareness of social issues and to probe the effects that globalism had on Irish society in the Celtic Tiger years is different to that of the realist films. This opposes the films of the Second Wave as comedic devices are used to expose social issues and the effects of globalisation rather than concealing them. The significance of the discourse is that it provides another way that films can spread social awareness in bigger budget productions without resorting to mask the effects of social issues. 4.2.2 Calvary Similar to The Guard the protagonist in Calvary Father James (also played by Brendan Gleeson) is plagued by the prejudices of society set on his character. He is presented as an upstanding priest who is hounded by the members of the diocese he lives in. The film shows how he must battle the backlash of the crimes of the church that are thrown upon him. McDonagh remarked when asked about his motivation in scripting the film: We decided to surround the good priest with awful, terrible characters. The priest is a straightforward good person. Usually, people have to be conflicted in films. So to drive the story forward, I have everyone else be evil and appalling towards him. He’s a good person reacting to [what] the evil men do (McDonagh quoted in Crummy, 2014).
On the macro level, the film takes the issues of the sexual child abuses by members of the Catholic Church that were revealed to the public in the last decades. By turning the usual narrative seen in the Irish media of the endless misdemeanours of members of the Irish catholic clergy the film puts the viewer in the position of a good priest who must deal with the abuse upon them as a result of the wrongdoings of others. The meso level of production shows that again, like The Guard, the funding and production comes from the IFB and British sources and the location is again set in where one of his parents are from. The
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discourse created from the insider/outsider perspective is again intriguing in the way it frames Irish characters and attitudes in a provoking way.
Image M: Father James watches his chapel being burned down in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary (2014). The provocation is set from the outset from the opening line in the film: "I first tasted semen when I was seven-years-old”. Father James hears this as he sits in the confession box in his church. The conversation continues to explain that the priest has only seven more days to live as the man tells him he is going to murder him for the sins of the church. The unknown man remarks after detailing the abuse he received from a priest who passed away: There’s no point in killing a bad priest. But killing a good one? That’d be a shock, now. They wouldn’t know what to make of that. I’m going to kill you, Father. I’m going to kill you because you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m going to kill you because you’re innocent.
The narrative puts into focus the notion that those priests who committed abuses got away without ever being properly charged with their crimes and in this film justice is taken by
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the hands of those abused. The controversy that surrounded these scandals from the priesthood is constructed in the film and criticized through the narrative by way of parodying reality. Film critic Patrick Gamble described it as “an acerbic yet wryly humorous study of faith and the vilification of Catholicism that laudably displays the good the bad and the ugly side of organised religion” (Gamble, 2014). The discourse shows no redemption for the priest Father James as he succumbs to his death at the end confirming the plan set out at the beginning by the murderer. Despite the priests attempts to search for the possible suspect and do his best in performing his duties as a priest through the film he only meets multiple characters who despise him and the Church, pushing him ever closer to the edge as he loses control. The pressure of his impending death and the inability to affect those around him to trust his actions only proves to antagonize the once honest priest. The situation leaves him victim to the attitudes of society of actions of individual priests which are spread among the church as a collective, something which he expresses in the narrative: “There’s too much talk about sins and not enough about virtues”. On a micro level the film discourse criticizes the group mentality in Irish society that attacks the innocent for the actions of a few. In addition it also opens a new perspective on the issues of the abuses of the Catholic Church, showing those who are victimized by the actions of others. The film opposes Celtic Tiger discourses by its way to show the sinister side to Irish society that reveals aspects which were hidden by previous discourses. In order to compare with the other film analyses the table (Fig. 3) below displays how in terms of the narrative, image and sound/music both films by McDonagh provide an opposing discourse to Celtic Tiger discourses. The narratives contain no happy endings which is a contrast to the films of the Second Wave, instead of living blissfully of the impact of social issues the protagonists of these films meet their faith by attempting to confront the issues. Accompanying the narrative the vividly coloured images and sombre and suspenseful soundtrack add to the parodying and sinister effects of the discourses. In addition the use of subversive humour in the films focuses on the effects of the issues instead of hiding them thus spreading awareness of the issues in Irish society.
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Film
Narrative
Image
Sound/Music
The Guard (2011)
Satirically shows the issues of drug crime, racism and police corruption in Irish society. Provokes audience with stereotypical versions of Irish characters. Protagonist sacrifices himself at end. Shows society coming together against a virtuous priest for crimes of others in the priesthood. The closure of the death of the protagonist sends an ominous message about attitudes in Irish society.
Set in west coast countryside. Vividly coloured, windswept landscapes and rural locations. Wide shots of the surroundings coupled with the warm cosiness of pubs and homes.
Incidental music used to heighten suspense. Spaghetti western style soundtrack to signify parodying intent.
Picturesque views of North West coast. Grey and windy countryside and provincial town setting. Slow moving, drawn out shots.
Sombre piano and strings. Mostly silences in dialogued scenes to aid darkness of mood.
Calvary (2014)
(Fig. 3) Overall, the two films by McDonagh create discourses that satirize Irish attitudes and stereotypes which provoke certain elements of Irish society built in the Celtic Tiger era. It can be seen to have a different method of creating awareness of issues in Irish society to that of the realist films by Abrahamson, Barrett and Berry. Despite the use of satire and provocation, the discourses have similar effects of creating a social reality that depicts Irish society as one with many faults that need to be addressed. In addition, the films create discourses which oppose those of the Celtic Tiger in how they present issues in Irish society and the effects they have. The films help to break the silences of the real effects of social issues and providing new perspectives of them which help to broaden the discourses on Irish society. In the next section I compare how the films of both the Second and Third Waves contrast with each other and show how the film discourses of the Third Wave do cultural work. 4.3 Summary: Opposing Celtic Tiger Discourse. In comparison to The Snapper, About Adam and Man About Dog the films analyzed above offer a very different view of life in Irish society. Although only set one or two decades apart they show the change in mentality in the presenting stories of Irish characters. The Snapper can be compared to Glassland where the daughter in the earlier film could be
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considered to be the mother in the latter. In The Snapper the narrative concluded with a happy ending and it is presumed that the child will grow up in a supportive and nurturing family. However, in comparison in Glassland the mother Jean can be considered to be Sharon, the daughter who grew up who, without a husband to help her raise her kids, eventually falls into alcoholism and depression, a possibility that didn’t occur in the film released during the Celtic Tiger. Another possibility is to compare About Adam to What Richard Did with Richard playing a similar character to that of Adam, an ultra-confident, well-off male who seduces women for fun. Adam could be considered the older version of Richard who avoided getting himself involved in any incidents that would hinder his progress and eventual happiness despite all the mischievous acts. The dark side of Adam’s character is not presented in any critical way in the end, again a contrast between the Second and Third Wave films. Man About Dog can be compared to The Guard if one would consider the presentation of acts of crime. In the former the acts have no serious harmful effects on the characters; however, in the latter and more recent film the criminals actually murder people which have serious consequences on the other characters and account for their crimes in the end. These simple comparisons of how the films deal with similar social issues in their narratives demonstrate the change in attitude in how the issues are viewed. The dominant discourses of the Celtic Tiger are opposed by these post Celtic Tiger discourses. These critical film discourses break the silences of social issues and make room for the rejects of Irish society who were hidden in favour for more commercial characters in the Second Wave. The resulting effects of these discourse is a broadening of the visual representations of Irish society. By spreading awareness of the social issues and providing new representations of marginalized characters of society these films do cultural work that help the possibility to educate the viewer in broadening their social reality.
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5. Conclusion: To conclude this thesis I will revisit the research question that I set at the beginning: How do discourses of social issues in recent Irish films (Third Wave) oppose previous discourses of the Celtic Tiger period (Second Wave) and what is the significance of these discourses in the contemporary period? To answer this question I first analyzed the three different eras in the history of Irish film that gave an insight into how film has progressed since its beginnings in the 1970s. From the independents to the recent period I found that the types of discourses created by films were heavily influenced by many factors of production such as aiming to please financial investors and enticing foreign markets to make profits. In the Second Wave these factors proved to help create discourses that had little effect in probing social issues in Irish society and instead produced more commercial, socially non-engaging films. This led to the creation of a cinema which left those who didn’t benefit from the prosperous economy of the Celtic Tiger out of representation in film. In the Third Wave one sees that there were films made that opposed the type of discourses created in the Second Wave by turning attention to members and issues of Irish society which were “imagined” out of representation. The films of the Third Wave, like Mark O’Connor called for in his manifesto, make “room for the rejects” and “rage against the silences” in Irish society. Although the films don’t exactly follow the manifesto as O’Connor describes, as he aimed for independent filmmakers to make these films, nevertheless the films provide discourses that create social awareness for the marginalized and open new perspectives on Irish society that have rarely been shown before. The significance of these discourses is the cultural work they do by the social awareness they create and expanding the perspective of Irish society in cinematic representation. This thesis expands on current literature on Irish film by showing how these films are engaging with social issues in contemporary Ireland. The use of critical discourse analysis gives a broader perspective of how these films are made, perceived and relevant to Irish society and further show how filmmakers use film texts, the narrative, images, sound and music to comment on the social issues that I have underlined. How they create awareness of the social issues that can be described as cultural work is also a concept that has not been employed with regard to the current developments in Irish film. The use of
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the concept of cultural work can be regarded as a term that best describes how films of recent years construct a discourse on issues of social importance, one that differs to previous dominant discourses of Irish culture that are seen in the Second Wave. It can also be seen, at the same time, to oppose the discourses from the Celtic Tiger period. The films of the Celtic Tiger era portrayed a successful Irish society and rarely depicted the seriousness of social issues which were a part of it. The analysis of films I chose of the Third Wave show alternative discourses. They are discourses which display how the impact of the recession influenced the makers of film in Ireland and turned their attention once again to the real problems and issues of the Irish people. The use of critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework helped to progress my analysis by helping to compare the films from different eras under the same criteria. This revealed the differences between discourses and in how the discourses were constructed under diverse conditions. One drawback from using this method in my research is from not being able to cast a full view on the discourses of each era. As I focused on the main or most prominent discourses this led to some minor discourses to be overseen. This, in a way, conflicts with the purposes of using the methodology in the first place as it is a tool to view how different discourses compete and the reasons for this. Despite this the use of the method in my thesis proved to be successful in showing how film culture in a space of time can reflect and represent the social landscape of a society. It also showed how many issues and concerns can be approached and engaged which are able to improve the human conditions in those societies through influencing discourses. Discourse is always in transition just as the society and culture that it is made in is also. To know what will happen in the future will depend on the social and cultural contexts in Ireland and the direction filmmakers will take in portraying them. For the time being this thesis shows how film discourses, when analyzed, can say a lot about the societies that they engage with and have the influence to change the social reality of those societies. This thesis is aimed towards film academics, film policy makers, filmmakers, educators, and those who have influence in the creation of film who are able to use the knowledge created here to recognize the importance of building a socially aware film culture. In the case of recent years in the Third Wave I have found that these film
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discourses prove to produce cultural work that helps to broaden the visual representations of Irish society and provides discourses that encourage awareness of the social issues within it. Further research into filmmaking policies would complement the findings here by providing how institutional developments in the Irish film industry are changing in recent time to view how filmmakers are given the opportunities and encouragements to produce socially aware films. An analysis of this area will help to show whether that the film industry is moving towards making films which expand the visual representation of the diverse social landscape in Ireland rather than simplifying it. This thesis showed how recent Irish film discourses break away from the dominant discourses of the Celtic Tiger period and by doing so create a socially aware Post Celtic Tiger discourse. The engagement of social issues from personal experiences and research of the filmmakers allows a more empathetic relation to the real day to day conditions of people in Irish society. The broad representations of people and how they are affected by the social conditions in contemporary Irish society add to the visual discourse of Irish life. Considering how discourses have great influence over their audiences the discourses created by films of the Third Wave are especially significant in the contemporary period as social issues are coming to the fore following the economic crash. Thus the influence of film discourses that provide ways of understanding and awareness has never been more essential than in Ireland today.
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