Irish Autobiographies Adapted for Film Essay -- Film Movie Cinematogra

Irish Autobiographies Adapted for Film This image of mid-twentieth century Ireland embodied in the themes of emigration, cultural isolation, economic depression, literary censorship and religious conservatism have become a fixed concept in the collective imaginative and cultural production. At the start of the twenty-first century, far from seeking to exorcise such associations, Joe Cleary has noted that "the period is repeatedly evoked because it serves as the definitive image of the anti-modern which a modernizing Ireland needed both to define itself against and to transcend" (114). In other words, maintaining an image of "Irishness" which conforms to these themes is increasingly significant, thus the further divorced they become from the present reality. Roy Foster has observed that Sometimes it is hard to avoid the feeling that the new, modernized, liberated Irish consciousness feels a sneaking nostalgia for the verities of the old victim-culture: which was also, in its way, a culture of superiority. (xv) This "nostalgia" has proved extremely marketable and continues to be expressed in self-consciously modern artistic forms, most notably in film. In spite of the obvious fascination in Ireland's recent past shown by filmmakers, it is almost impossible to find a satisfactory definition for the term "Irish Film." In his important work Irish Filmography, Kevin Rockett notes that of over 2,000 feature films produced with an Irish theme world-wide since the beginnings of the cinema, less than 200 have been made in Ireland itself and most of these only in the last fifteen years or so (510). Yet, whether the on-screen influence of high-profile Irish actors or off-screen production input are taken as definitive, many film h... ...gton, Susan Tetlow. "Angela's Ashes." Literature/Film Quarterly. 29:1(2001): 58-62. Hill, Joan. et al eds., Border Crossing: Film in Ireland, Britain and Europe. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994. McLoone, Martin. "Ireland in Cinema." Joan Hill and Pamela Church Gibson eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: OUP, 1998. McLoone, Martin. Irish Film: The Emergence of Contemporary Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 2000. "My Left Foot." Channel4.com. My Left Foot. Dir. Jim Sheridan. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Alison Whelen and Kristen Sheridan. Miramax Films, 1989. O'Hehir, Andrew, "Borstal Boy." Salon.Com 2002. Vankin, Jonathan and John Whalen. Based on a True Story: Fact and Fantasy in 100 Favorite Movies. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005. Wagner, Geoffrey. The Novel and the Cinema. Vancouver: FDU Press, 1975. Irish Autobiographies Adapted for Film Essay -- Film Movie Cinematogra Irish Autobiographies Adapted for Film This image of mid-twentieth century Ireland embodied in the themes of emigration, cultural isolation, economic depression, literary censorship and religious conservatism have become a fixed concept in the collective imaginative and cultural production. At the start of the twenty-first century, far from seeking to exorcise such associations, Joe Cleary has noted that "the period is repeatedly evoked because it serves as the definitive image of the anti-modern which a modernizing Ireland needed both to define itself against and to transcend" (114). In other words, maintaining an image of "Irishness" which conforms to these themes is increasingly significant, thus the further divorced they become from the present reality. Roy Foster has observed that Sometimes it is hard to avoid the feeling that the new, modernized, liberated Irish consciousness feels a sneaking nostalgia for the verities of the old victim-culture: which was also, in its way, a culture of superiority. (xv) This "nostalgia" has proved extremely marketable and continues to be expressed in self-consciously modern artistic forms, most notably in film. In spite of the obvious fascination in Ireland's recent past shown by filmmakers, it is almost impossible to find a satisfactory definition for the term "Irish Film." In his important work Irish Filmography, Kevin Rockett notes that of over 2,000 feature films produced with an Irish theme world-wide since the beginnings of the cinema, less than 200 have been made in Ireland itself and most of these only in the last fifteen years or so (510). Yet, whether the on-screen influence of high-profile Irish actors or off-screen production input are taken as definitive, many film h... ...gton, Susan Tetlow. "Angela's Ashes." Literature/Film Quarterly. 29:1(2001): 58-62. Hill, Joan. et al eds., Border Crossing: Film in Ireland, Britain and Europe. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994. McLoone, Martin. "Ireland in Cinema." Joan Hill and Pamela Church Gibson eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: OUP, 1998. McLoone, Martin. Irish Film: The Emergence of Contemporary Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 2000. "My Left Foot." Channel4.com. My Left Foot. Dir. Jim Sheridan. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Alison Whelen and Kristen Sheridan. Miramax Films, 1989. O'Hehir, Andrew, "Borstal Boy." Salon.Com 2002. Vankin, Jonathan and John Whalen. Based on a True Story: Fact and Fantasy in 100 Favorite Movies. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005. Wagner, Geoffrey. The Novel and the Cinema. Vancouver: FDU Press, 1975.