{"id":9579,"date":"2022-03-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9579"},"modified":"2022-03-30T07:53:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T11:53:45","slug":"the-irish-on-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9579","title":{"rendered":"The Irish on Film"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In past St. Patrick\u2019s Day posts I\u2019ve talked about some of my favorite books set in Ireland or with strongly Irish characters (See those here<\/a> and here<\/a>.) Here are a few of my favorite movies about that story-laden land, old and new. Is it because there are more stories there, or because the Irish are such good story-tellers? Cannot say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belfast<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenneth Branagh\u2019s highly personal elegy to his home town in 1969, at the beginning of \u201cThe Troubles\u201d certainly deserves its Academy Award Best Picture nomination (trailer<\/a>). It captures the joy of childhood, as well as the anxieties of the adults in a Protestant family, where the neighborhood around them is devolving into religious violence. What a nine-year-old boy thinks of as adventure, his parents see as is mortal danger. Outstanding, should-have-been-nominated performances by Caitriona Balfe as the mother and Jamie Dornan as the father, Judi Dench and Ciar\u00e1n Hinds as the grandparents, and Jude Hill as the sunny boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brooklyn<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember Brooklyn? The 2015 film written by Nick Hornby about a young Irish immigrant , Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) in the 1950s (trailer<\/a>). It\u2019s an effective meditation on how all immigrants feel they have a foot in two places, that they are or could be living two entirely different lives. Compound that in Eilis\u2019s case that the trip across the ocean coincides with growing up and starting her own life. Lots o  disruption for one spunky gal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Name of the Father<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go back in time thirty years for this one, released in 1993 (trailer<\/a>). Daniel Day-Lewis, in one of his awe-inspiring star turns, plays Belfast petty thief and general layabout Gerry Conlon. Falsely imprisoned on charges he participated in an IRA bombing, he\u2019s in jail for fifteen years before the dogged efforts of the lawyer for his father, also falsely imprisoned, provides any hope of release. Pete Postlethwaite plays his father, and Emma Thompson the lawyer. Though fiction, the story is \u201cinspired by true events.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In past St. Patrick\u2019s Day posts I\u2019ve talked about some of my favorite books set in Ireland or with strongly Irish characters (See those here and here.) Here are a few of my favorite movies about that story-laden land, old … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"It amazes me when so many people know little about their grandparents--not even their names or where they came from, except vaguely. Could that happen to an Irishman? Doesn't seem possible, watching these outstanding films.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,266,57,104],"tags":[377,1971,1972,331],"class_list":["post-9579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-history","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-belfast","tag-brooklyn","tag-in-the-name-of-the-father","tag-ireland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2uv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9581,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9579\/revisions\/9581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}