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Why unionism fails to star on the big screen
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
enlargeThe film Hunger which is currently showing in local cinemas is being praised for its standard of acting.
A friend who has been to see it confirms that Michael Fassbender who plays the hunger striker Bobby Sands is indeed very good. My friend (nationalist) is less impressed with its content. “Based on a true story,” just about sums it up he says.
Movies, of course, do not always set out to be historically accurate. The audience generally allows for a bit of artistic licence. All the same ?
Where Hunger falls down, its critics say, is that it doesn’t set Sands and his fellow terrorist prisoners in context. The audience knows that he and the other hunger strikers are in prison.
What they’re not told is why.
Unlike, say, the prisoners at Guantanamo, each one of the hunger strikers was convicted in a court of law. Their crimes ranged from possession of guns and explosives to murder. For example, one of the men, jailed for the killing of an army officer, was also believed to have been involved in many other murders including that of a man and his 10-year-old daughter.
Some scope there you might think for a drawn out scene of debate about the morality of taking life. Albeit in this case not the prisoner’s life, but those of his innocent victims.
One of the reasons why the story of the hunger strike appeals to film makers is that the concept of a terrorist killing himself for ‘the cause’ resonates in an era of Islamic suicide bombers.
But focusing on Sands in prison without mentioning the terrorist crimes that landed him there is a bit like focusing on the last minutes of Mohammed Atta without mentioning that these were spent in a passenger jet hurtling towards the Twin Towers.
It is like focusing on the death in the same Maze prison of the loyalist terrorist Billy Wright without mentioning his back catalogue of sectarian murder and mayhem.
Or on a much greater scale, it’s like a film of Hitler debating his decision to commit suicide in the bunker but neglecting to mention the Holocaust, the Third Reich and Nazism.
These things are relevant. Without reference to the hunger strikers’ crimes, the film appears to be suggesting that the issue of taking someone else’s life is not as big a deal as the perpetrator subsequently taking his own.
Some film-goers might even come away with the impression that the hunger strikers were imprisoned purely for their political beliefs.
The movie may not be everybody’s idea of an entertaining night out with a bucket of popcorn. But it is likely to do well — especially in the awards sense.
As the latest in a long list of films and plays to be made from the republican perspective, it also underlines the odd issue of the complete dearth of drama written from a unionist viewpoint. In fact it’s almost impossible to think of a single sympathetic portrayal in any play or movie of an Ulster Prod.
On film, unionists are either two-dimensional Bible-thumping madmen or monstrous savages.
They don’t get played by big names. The message is they and their experiences and their standpoint don’t count. Just as startling is the seeming indifference within the wider arts and media establishment as to why this should be. There are no workshops to debate the matter. Few articles highlighting it. An entire section of the community is written off as undeserving or incapable of voice. And nobody in the establishment seems terribly bothered about this.
In fairness a one-sided approach isn’t exactly a new thing in the film and arts world.
Back in the ‘golden’ era of Hollywood westerns, Native Americans weren’t afforded much of a sympathetic hearing either. They were merely camera fodder. Mad medicine men and crazed warriors.
Not three dimensional characters who might have had a valid story of their own. Ditto the old movies about Africa where the locals were portrayed as mad savages, witch doctors or hapless saps.
It’s always possible that a few years down the line a movie maker may well be earning plaudits for a cutting edge and ground breaking film about the hitherto unexplored experience of the Ulster Protestant working class.
For now though, the unionist side of the story is deemed to offer neither award-winning nor big box office potential.
So there’s no hunger for it.
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This woman is a tabloid journalist at best, way out of her depth in an allegedly serious newspaper as the Belfast Telegraph purports to be. Her rantings are not to be taken seriously.
Posted by Tony Fearon | 07.11.08, 09:45 GMT
Lindy, you are pure comic genius. Now that I think about it, the Native Americans and those poor souls shipped in chains from Britain to Ireland during the Plantation did indeed endure similar hardship and injustice. It just wasn't clear to me before reading your piece. You shed light wherever your pen lands.
Let's rename Drumcree "Wounded Knee" and watch the Hollywood bandwagon roll into town.
Posted by Erasmus | 07.11.08, 00:12 GMT
"In fact it’s almost impossible to think of a single sympathetic portrayal in any play or movie of an Ulster Protestant. ", bemoans Lindy after equating Unionism with the plight of Native Americans and exploited (by Lindy's beloved Britain, amongst others) Africans. Wiping away the tears in my eye, I can think of December Bride, On Eagle's wing, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme of the top of my head. Not that impossible, eh? Still why should Lindy let facts get in the way
Posted by Dec | 06.11.08, 09:41 GMT
Poor Lindy...even the Daily Telegraph can give the Movie a hugely postive review from an 'ART' point of view ...u can write?..try a screen play bout triumphs like errr the protestant only shipyard story called 'Titanic' errrr on second thoughts, 'Holy Cross the True Story' errr we're on thin ground there me girl....if hollywood aint comin callin,ask yourself some questions.....that you and Stephen King in today's Irish Examiner come to the same parohical pov about an event 27 years ago.
Posted by Matt, London | 05.11.08, 21:45 GMT
Lindy
I can’t help but notice the comparisons you draw and wonder if it is you that has lost the plot and not the film! On one hand likening Bobby Sands, who starved himself to death for a list of simple demands to allow for the continuation of the political status that was later afforded to all in the release post Good Friday agreement - to that of an extremist who murdered thousands for a religious ideal or Hitler who murdered millions. Yet on the other hand you compare unionists to the Native Americans who were persecuted and had their land taken from them! A comparison I find difficult to connect given the history of the Ulster-Scot settlement in Ireland! I can’t but wonder how we have made so much progress now in Ireland when we still have the twisted and nonsensical views of your generation. It is not about denying unionists their story but about accepting the story of your nationalist neighbours. You can’t deny History, Accept it.
Posted by Danny - Glasgow/Belfast | 05.11.08, 18:08 GMT
Lindy you should see Hunger - it wouldn't hurt although I understand your recoil from propaganda. But propaganda it isn't. A little context in the film wouldn't hurt but when you start to put in context where does it end? Hunger isn't from a republican perspective in the familiar sense. Sands doesn't come across as a hero. The situation is the theme. Dialogue is sparse. There is the brutal and brutalising effect on the prison officers and the distorting effect of the dirty protest on the prisoners' judgment. An end- caption reports the killing of 16 officers during the dirty protest and the hunger strike. The one 20 minute scene between Sands who has just decided to emark on the hunger strike and a priest is an unsentimental, tough minded dialogue on the arguments for and against and ends without resolution. "I don't think I'll be seeing you again Bobby." "Aye, you might leave those ( fags) behind you". I was impressed. I think you would be too. Go and see it.
Posted by Brian Walker, London | 05.11.08, 17:50 GMT
An Everlasting Piece portrayed two young men, one Catholic and one Protestant, in search of a mutually shared future. That is the only way forward.
Posted by Seosamh | 05.11.08, 17:17 GMT
I see little point in either side trying to glorify their struggles on screen.
In days gone by we had movies devoted to the Allies & how they bravely & successfully defeated Nazi Germany. More recently, movies & TV series highlighting the good guys putting middle-eastern terrorists to the sword.
Perhaps it is high time there was a movie depicting those caught up 'in the middle' of the NI conflict. A story of a young British Army soldier in 1970s Northern Ireland brought over to bring stability to an unstable land & help root out terrorists. It could depict the day-to-day troubles encountered by this young soldier just doing his job to feed & cloth his loving family back home - from stone-throwing youths to petrol-bomb throwing adults, to avoiding sniper-fire in Co Armagh, to narrowly avoiding death following no-warning city-centre bombs.
And finally how, when the time was right, having successfully beaten a terror-machine hell bent on murder & destruction, he returned home..
Posted by mickey | 05.11.08, 16:43 GMT
It would be great to think that the "minor" detail of what crimes these terrorists had committed was left out for the sake of art, like Yip suggests. But I would imagine in reality details like that get conveniently left out as it is too bitter a pill for the audinece to swallow. Which film will make more money and win more awards? The film with the romantic ideal about freedom fighters and heroes of the cause or the film about low-life, terrorist, murdering scum?
Enjoy your popcorn, Tom.
Posted by Richard | 05.11.08, 16:19 GMT
So, Tom, what about the thousands of Irish people murdered without a choice? Is getting interned worse?
Posted by neil | 05.11.08, 15:48 GMT
As usual, sub-standard stuff that will be lapped up by those craving a simple view. Faux victimhood and tendentious comparisons cannot replace cogent argument. Is Lindy saying that every single story should be told from all possible angles in case someone gets offended? Anyway, it seems she hasn't seen the film. it is clear in Hunger that the men are in prison for crimes against the state. It is clear that they (through their organisation) are ruthless, e.g. how they deal with prison officers on the outside.
Posted by William | 05.11.08, 14:42 GMT
What in God's name makes you so prejudiced towards Catholics, Nationalists and Republicans? You are the epitome of ignorance and hate. You win. You're the winner. Congrats.
Posted by McRee | 05.11.08, 14:32 GMT
Oh Tom you've found your way to this page to add your 'uni-dimensional' views here and not just on the firework at the Linfield & Cliftonville game. A man of many views...
Posted by Aaron | 05.11.08, 14:18 GMT
Here's a novel idea Lindy: why not go and see the film for yourself?
Posted by terry | 05.11.08, 14:13 GMT
Your right Lindy, maybe they could make a film about the plantations, when Irish families in ulster or any province for that matter were thrown off their own land so the English, Scotch and French settlers(Prod's as you put it) could have their land.
I've seen many articles on this subject but in not one of these has anyone put forward exactly what a possible story could be for unionists, anyone care to suggest?
Jim Liverpool
Posted by Jim | 05.11.08, 13:09 GMT
It's not "art", it's just money-making on the back of the misery inflicted by Irish Republicanism on our country. If the film profits were donated to victims groups, maybe it would have some merit. I wonder will they...
Posted by Steve | 05.11.08, 12:52 GMT
If you don't like the truth then don't go to the cinema to watch it you have a choice unlike the thousands of irishmen and women who were interned without a choice.
Posted by Tom | 05.11.08, 11:07 GMT
It's art Lindy. It doesn't have to give us the big picture, or even tell us the truth. It stands on its own merits. If you read anything about it the film, you'll find the director (who has no axe to grind) just wanted to focus on one aspect of this extraordinary story - people starving themselves to death.
Some will find it distasteful. Fine, don't go and see it. I certainly shan't. But that's the big bad world for you. Out there, we don't get one unionist film for every republican film. One sweetie for the protestants for every sweetie the catholics get.
Posted by Yip | 05.11.08, 10:15 GMT