I went to see “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460989/ last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. There are at least three Timberites better qualified than I to judge of the historical accuracy of the film, so I won’t comment on that. There did seem to be points of universal interest though. A group of farm-boys with a semi-theocratic ideology successfully holding off the high-tech army of a modern industrialized power next door seems to be a theme that gets repeated in other times and places. And the way in which a revolutionary nationalist movement divides into warring factions in when faced with a pragmatic compromise of its maximal goals has some parallels with the Palestinian story. An unexpected pleasure was the close physical resemblance between pompous landowner Sir John Hamilton (played by Roger Allam) and Christopher Hitchens. Recommended.
{ 19 comments }
ajay 08.15.06 at 8:50 am
Roger Allam – last seen playing, well, Christopher Hitchens, basically, in “V for Vendetta”. (Lewis Prothero, the TV talking head). This man seems to be becoming typecast. Too bad. Some people get typecast as decent characters (Robert Hardy as Churchill, Tom Sizemore as Sturdy Reliable NCO/Police Sergeant, Patrick Troughton as Wellington) – pity that Allam is becoming your go-to guy for Pompous Overbearing Twit. Still, it’s a living.
Cryptic Ned 08.15.06 at 9:15 am
I thought he was playing Bill o’Reilly with a British accent in “V for Vendetta”.
Wait a minute…could it be that Christopher Hitchens is Bill O’Reilly with a British accent?
Mike 08.15.06 at 9:26 am
Wait a minute…could it be that Christopher Hitchens is Bill O’Reilly with a British accent?
Hmm. Christopher Hitchins is never around when… wait…
Look! Up in the sky!
P O'Neill 08.15.06 at 10:35 am
On a slightly related note, I’ve wondered if Neil Jordan was having a little fun in Michael Collins by casting Alan Rickman, a master of the English bad-guy role, as Eamon DeValera.
dearieme 08.15.06 at 10:43 am
You could argue, of course, that such films are celebrating the first successful European fascist movement of the 20th century.
peter 08.15.06 at 11:26 am
“the first successful European fascist movement of the 20th century”
I’m sure it particularly seemed so from the vantage point of the plush, overstuffed leather chairs in the studies and smoking rooms of all the smartest British colonial clubs and estates in Ireland.
If it was really that great a concern, the British could always have taken the wind out of its sails by … oh, wait, right: leaving.
EWI 08.15.06 at 2:14 pm
On a slightly related note, I’ve wondered if Neil Jordan was having a little fun in Michael Collins by casting Alan Rickman, a master of the English bad-guy role, as Eamon DeValera.
Whatever about that, to me the definitive ‘Michael Collins’ and ‘Eamonn de Valera’ will always be Brendan Gleeson and Barry McGovern in The Treaty.
EWI 08.15.06 at 2:19 pm
An unexpected pleasure was the close physical resemblance between pompous landowner Sir John Hamilton (played by Roger Allam) and Christopher Hitchens.
Quite the coincidence, wasn’t it?
rupes 08.15.06 at 2:56 pm
Dearieme (#5)
You could argue, of course, that such films are celebrating the first successful European fascist movement of the 20th century.
Can you explain? I am not being sarcastic, but I don’t quite follow the point – perhaps because I don’t know enough about the period. I think you are saying the DeValera was a fascist (or did I misunderstand you totally?) which I had not heard said before…?
dearieme 08.15.06 at 5:57 pm
rupes, apologies for being so cryptic. Dev wasn’t particularly who I had in mind, and my mind was more on the Easter Rising rather than the post war fighting. But I once read Stanley Payne, who produced a check-list of the characteristics of fascism, and it seemed to me that the Easter Rising crowd fitted it quite well. Much better than, for instance, many of Franco’s supporters – the reactionary catholics and the monarchists, I mean, not the Falange.
sidereal 08.15.06 at 6:41 pm
Did you sit within the valley green? Did you sit you with your true love? Did your sad heart strive the two between, the old love and the new love (the old for her, the new that made you think on Ireland dearly) while soft the wind blew down the glade and shook the golden barley?
EWI 08.15.06 at 6:59 pm
But I once read Stanley Payne, who produced a check-list of the characteristics of fascism, and it seemed to me that the Easter Rising crowd fitted it quite well.
Yes, but what is your opinion on the clear Communism of the Levellers?
Laura 08.15.06 at 10:27 pm
I can see at least two ways in which this is a quite ridiculous objection to make, but I thought TWTSTB was very good up until those points where the actual movie ground to a halt and was replaced with scenes of people in rooms shouting at one another a la debating teams. It’s Ken Loach’s thing but that doesn’t make it ok…
methinkitsme 08.16.06 at 12:08 am
Does the soundtrack include Lisa Gerrard’s beautiful rendition? I am hoping not and so, she sings it well.
ajay 08.16.06 at 5:08 am
Laura – I don’t think that’s a ridiculous criticism – lots of things are important bits of history but make terrible cinema. The negotiations over the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s started something pretty big, but I have great difficulty imagining a less interesting topic for a film.
Peter: non sequitur. Touched a nerve, did we?
I wouldn’t like to say whether Dev was a fascist or not – not my period; I’m a 17th-century man – but the Blueshirts were certainly kicking around in the interwar period, descended from one side of the Civil War forces. (Ridiculous mob. “Hail, O’Duffy!” indeed. Like something out of PG Wodehouse.)
dearieme 08.16.06 at 9:38 am
ewi: I plead ignorance – but I do recognise a nice tease.
EWI 08.16.06 at 1:51 pm
@ dearieme – no problem! The Irish (republican, that is, not Redmondism) nationalism of the period was no worse than any other country’s, and better than most.
@ ajay:
I wouldn’t like to say whether Dev was a fascist or not – not my period; I’m a 17th-century man – but the Blueshirts were certainly kicking around in the interwar period, descended from one side of the Civil War forces.
I’m sure that I’m not the only one who noticed that you failed to mention that Dev was on the other side to those who became the Blueshirts, not to mention the “March on Dublin” or that most IRA who went to Spain joined the Republican side.
DC 08.16.06 at 5:56 pm
I was rather irritated by the manner in which Loach dragged the tenor of the anti-treaty argument way to the left of what it really was – at least what it consciously was. Certainly there was a social aspect to the divide – the lower classes (though I’m not sure about the industrial working class) were certainly more likely to be anti-treaty than the better off.
It’s not that it’s implausible that people would have said things in the (socialist) manner Loach has them say it in the debate scenes (someone like Countess Markiewicz certainly did in the Dail debate), just that it’s unrepresentative according to what I’ve read.
Still, definitely worth seeing. As usual Loach’s naturalistic acting approach has its ups and downs. I really enjoyed the training scenes, and obviously the torture and execution scenes are fairly powerful.
peter 08.17.06 at 10:48 pm
Ajay,
I don’t really see how what I said is a non-sequitur. It was sarcasm that would seem to be a natural vein to follow from the original statement. Do you care to clarify?
And no, I did not touch a nerve. I actually have IRA members in my family tree (mother’s side) from back in the day, and have few illusions about “the movement”. I was one of the few people in my family who did not support the IRA during the Troubles in the Seventies and Eighties.
I know that, in reality, the IRA did in fact meet a number of standards by which one might label an organization facist. I just find it funny that Ireland is one those interesting cases where it is the occupied who seem to be under all the pressure to make apologies.
And that I think is a reasonable point: if you really want to get rid of that facist organization, focus on the cause, because that organization, however disgusting, is the effect.
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