In this essay I hope to cover and discuss Martin McLoones views on The Butcher Boy, especially when he mentions that the movie is a metaphor for Ireland as "The abused child of History." I will hope to relate his comments and the film itself back to Irish National Cinema.
Martin McLoone sums up the Butcher Boy by saying, "Set in small-town Ireland of the early 1960s, the film traces the descent into violence and madness of twelve-year-old Francie Brady, the victim of a dysfunctional family and an uncaring and abusive environment. Francie starts out as a witty, loveable rogue who 's happiness is built around his friendship with Joe Purcell" (McLoone, pg. 213, 2000) The description of the movie when it was first released was as follows; "A dark
This problem of identity for Francie is evident as Francie had to grow up at a very fast rate. He was very independent as his mother suffered depression and his father was an alcoholic and abusive man. The development of Francie 's childhood was extreme. He knew nothing better. But that seem to be a topic in Irish Film; if we compare it, "The butcher boy is similar to Connor Mc Dermottroe 's Swansong: the story of Occi Byrne (2009), the institutions of church and state do little to protect the vulnerable family that is Austin Byrne and his mother Bridget"(Debbie Ging ,pg.73, 2013) We see that this is an element that society does not like to discuss as we have not been made aware to a high enough degree to fully understand how to help people. The story on Occi Byrne highlights similar clerical issues, in the fact the priests would have intercourse with Occis mother, who also suffered mental
Throughout the film we have a narrator. This narrator was there to give us a deeper insight into the life of Francie Brady. The narration of Francie 's life made us grow more found of him, and even though he was committing crimes we were in a way cheering him on, as we grew to love the Character. Smith goes on to say, The butcher boy was a landmark even in Irish culture 's increasing use of personal narrative as a means of excavating "the elided history of Irelands architecture of containment (Smith, 2001: 112). This backs up my statement on the narrative aspect of the film, it made us more aware of what was going on and gave us a deeper insight into things. A new era was born for Irish Films. Within the Butcher Boy we see the scene where there was a nuclear bomb. This wasn’t an actual explosion but a turn of events in Francie 's life. It was to highlight the inner pain and hurt that had built up inside of Francie. All the events throughout his life, his mother’s death, sexual abuse at school and the loss of his one and true best friend Joe has got to him. In my own opinion this explosion identified to us a change in Francis '
The boy is a symbol of hope for the future of the world and he is proof that some humanity still exists in this dark world. The thief sees this in the boy, since McCarthy describes him seeing something “very sobering” to him in the child’s face. The boy wants to be the good guy so badly that he does not want to hurt their enemies, a fairness that the father finds hard to advocate. The boy symbolizes hope and the innocence and goodness in this new and acrid world. The goodness in the boy is one even his father cannot understand; a goodness buried deep within the boy.
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
Anyone who has had the chance to read Mary Shelly’s original Frankenstein and watch the movie Young Frankenstein is aware that there is quite a difference when it comes to the two of them. For one it is easy to point out that Young Frankenstein is set out to be a comedy while the original version of Frankenstein is made to be serious. Young Frankenstein is a 1977 film that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein’s grandson. The film adaptation is essentially a parody of the classic tale along with other versions of Frankenstein. It pointed out from the start of the movie that it would run directly parallel with the original tale when Fredrick Frankenstein was mentioned to be the grandson of the infamous Victor
By analysing Shane' (1953) in conjunction with its visual style and western themes, it will clearly show what aspects of western culture are apparent in the film. By looking at the visual style, this will show how the mise-en-scene informs the audience that Shane' is placed in the western genre.
Slaughterhouse-Five: The Novel and the Movie In 1972 director George Roy Hill released his screen adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (or The Children's Crusade; A Duty Dance With Death). The film made over 4 million dollars and was touted as an "artistic success" by Vonnegut (Film Comment, 41). In fact, in an interview with Film Comment in 1985, Vonnegut called the film a "flawless translation" of his novel, which can be considered an honest assessment in light of his reviews of other adaptations of his works: Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971) "turned out so abominably" that he asked to have his name removed from it; and he found Slapstick of Another Kind (1984) to be "perfectly horrible" (41,44).
For example, in the beginning, when the boys first came to the island they gave some respect to the pig they killed, as though they killed it with some decency. “‘Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”’ (96). This quote is from Jack, the leader of the hunters, even though it sounds inhumane, their knowledge and mindsets were limited and straightforward at that time. They mutilated another pig further into the book, as the result of them thinking they don’t have future consequences. “‘Right up her ass! Did you hear? Did you hear what he said? Right up her ass!’” (195). The way that they killed the pig shows how twisted their mindset have become, and how barbaric their thoughts are by thinking it’s decent to mutilate animals. Robert was an example on the corrupt actions that they did while on the island because there were no restrictions. The killing of the pigs validates the before and after mental state of the boys and the journey they went through to become
The Bolshevik Revolution was a defining turning point in Russian history. This overall revolution consisted of two individual revolutions in 1917 which resulted in the overthrow of the Tsarist government and the formation of a socialist society led by Vladimir Lenin’s radical Bolsheviks. For a moment with such enormous weight like the Bolshevik Revolution, there will be various interpretations on the true results of that moment and the meaning and value of these results. The film Man with a Movie Camera deals with the results of the Bolshevik Revolution and the early Soviet Society it birthed as it utilizes footage of one day in this early Soviet Union, thus making it worthy of examination. In the film Man With a Movie Camera, Vertov impressively
In 1971 Tom Laughlin released Billy Jack, the sequel to The Born Losers (1967) starring himself as the main character, Billy Jack, a biracial Navajo Native American. The film explores the plight of Native Americans in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement (the film is set in and was filmed in 1969), as well as their interactions with the dominant White American culture. The main character Billy Jack is set up to be a myth like warrior-savior of the Native Americans and the multi-ethnic populace of their reservation. Billy Jack, even though he is half-white is completely submerged in his Navajo culture, taking a vow of peace that throughout the film is broken. The film shows an unadulterated depiction of White American racism and privilege,
Slaughterhouse 5, also know as The Children’s Crusade, has its intent aimed at showing the innocent people that end up having to partake in war. Many scenes and characters in the book encompass this by reflecting the childish nature in each character or how ordinary they appear to be. The main character is the epitome of this theme, with Billy Pilgram being an otherwise bland (other than the fictional aspect of his “time travel” or the reality of his mental disorder), innocent, average American sent out to war. In my opinion, Billy is also a way for the author Kurt Vonnegut to put some of his own personal views and experiences into his book, since the entire first chapter is Vonnegut explaining his inability to write a serious book of his own first hand account of the Dresden Firebombing.
This essay by Jonathan Swift is a brutal satire in which he suggests that the poor Irish families should kill their young children and eat them in order to eliminate the growing number of starving citizens. At this time is Ireland, there was extreme poverty and wide gap between the poor and the rich, the tenements and the landlords, respectively. Throughout the essay Swift uses satire and irony as a way to attack the indifference between classes. Swift is not seriously suggesting cannibalism, he is trying to make known the desperate state of the lower class and the need for a social and moral reform in Ireland.
Director Neil Jordan made the film adaptation of McCabe’s ‘The Butcher Boy’ as close to the novel as he could possibly get. This film was a huge success for Neil Jordan and for the future of the Irish film. “The Butcher Boy” covered themes that were relevant to the 1960’s but also keeping with the themes that saturated Irish film in recent years such as the romanticised Ireland which Jordan depicted in a different way. This film showed another way of portraying the small town Irish, away from the stereotypes and romanticism of Ireland. The film does have omissions from the novel but Jordan brought along the general themes and thoughts that so often ran through the novel. Throughout the film we get an insight into Irish society at this breath taking time and its effects in particular the effects of modernisation in Ireland, specifically...
Too many horror films provide scares and screams throughout their respective cinemas. Not many viewers follow what kind of model the films follow to appease their viewers. However, after reading film theorist Carol Clover’s novel, watching one of the films she associates in the novel “Halloween”, and also watching the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” I say almost every “slasher” or horror film follows a model similar to Clover’s. The model is a female is featured as a primary character and that females tend to always overcome a situation at some point throughout the film.
Jones, Peter G. "The End of the Road: Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade" Modern Critical Interpretations Slaughterhouse-Five Ed. Harold Bloom.
*Hunt for the Wilderpeople* builds on Waititi 's drama/comedy combination and further cements his auteur status. *Wilderpeople* is about an orphan boy who moves from one foster family to another, generally being a delinquent. This causes him to earn the title of "a real bad egg". The majority of the film takes place as Ricky Baker is on the run through the vast forest. While structurally different than *Boy*, both films deal with coming-of-age, parents, and loneliness. Unlike *Boy*, *Wilderpeople* is divided up into ten chapters and an epilogue. Despite this, *Boy* is the more episodic film. Since *Wilderpeople* relies more on a causal narrative, it seems more like a standard Hollywood film at first. But Waititi finds a way to make it his own.
Cultural nationalism is a force that permeates through films as a reflection of the country of origin and production. Naturally, it focuses on national identity shaped by cultural traditions and language – a concept that proves problematic when appertained to Irish film and how the ‘Irish Mind’ is translated on screen. Unlike many other countries, Ireland lacks the strong foundation of indigenous voice to solidify its films as Irish, despite the early efforts of Douglas Hyde and others to restore the Gaelic language. Since the linguistic footing of Ireland was crippled by the widespread use of English, the hope of a distinctive culture was put into the Irish Literary Revival; such hope was then catechised by the Roman Catholic tradition for