The Butcher Boy (1997) - Tuesday October 22, QFT Belfast, 8pm. 35mm print screening with Neil Jordan introduction
Synopsis: A darkly humorous tale of a tragic childhood in an insular Irish community of the 1960s, The Butcher Boy features Neil Jordan regular Stephen Rea. Based on the award-winning 1992 novel by Patrick McCabe, it focuses on 12-year-old Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens), whose mother (Aisling O’Sullivan) is suffering from mental illness exacerbated by her abusive alcoholic husband (Rea). As Francie retreats into movie and TV-fuelled fantasies, he eventually lashes out with a shocking act of violence.
Neil Jordan: I think for everybody who read The Butcher Boy, it made some kind of connection with them, because it so perfectly expressed the kind of strange mental atmosphere of those days.
Pat wrote it in Clones, and it concludes with the entire town waiting for the Virgin Mary [portrayed in the film by Sinead O’Connor] to appear and all this sort of stuff. And you realise that whatever madness is going on in Francie Brady’s mind is kind of only a reflection of the broader kind of rather delightful madness that is going on in society at large.
I wanted to make a movie about that, so I bought the rights and I asked Pat to write a script. He wrote something that was basically an entirely different version of the book. His instinct was to change everything, so I kind of had to take control of it myself, really [Jordan has a co-writing credit], to make sure that the novel was reflected in the movie.
At the time, I’d done two movies for Warner Brothers [Interview With the Vampire and Michael Collins], and they asked me, ‘What are you doing next?’. And I said, ‘Well, you wouldn’t be interested in it, it’s too weird’.
Basically, the more I said that, the more they wanted to do it. So I ended up doing this rather eccentric independent Irish movie with quite a large budget from a studio, which enabled me to really visually realise everything that was going on the book.
I ended up doing this rather eccentric independent Irish movie with quite a large budget from a studio
— Neil Jordan
It was an interesting thing to do, because normally when you do these kind of films you’re always scrabbling for bits of budget to make the more fantastical aspects of things work. I’ve done a lot of fantastical kind of movies [like that] but in this case I just had enough money to do it all.
It was extraordinary, really. I mean, we could take Clones and we could recreate it as exactly it would have been around 1962. And we could build the fantastical elements that reflected the child’s mind and all that sort of stuff.
I cast three non-actors in Eamonn Owens and his two friends, whom I found in a little school in Killeshandra. For a role like Francie, you kind of need a non-actor - you’re not going to get a kid out of drama school able to play that thing.
Eamonn actually was a superb actor. He brought the entire energy of childhood with him, it was remarkable. I think he gave a really amazing performance.
I love working with non-actors. For example, I did The Company of Wolves with Sarah Patterson, and I did The Crying Game with Jaye Davidson. I love combining non-actors with actors, because the actors kind of get jealous. They go, ‘I remember I used to do things that easily, without any filter’, you know? Suddenly, they feel like ‘why can’t I do it like that anymore?’
So, the non-actors really keep the actors on their toes. It’s really interesting.
The Crying Game (1992) - Saturday November 16, QFT Belfast, 6pm
Synopsis: The Crying Game begins with an unlikely friendship developing between a kidnapped British soldier (Forest Whitaker) and his IRA captor, Fergus (Stephen Rea). When the hostage-taking goes horribly wrong, Fergus escapes to London, where he seeks out the soldier’s lover, Dil (Jaye Davidson). A skilful examination of race, gender and national politics, The Crying Game won Neil Jordan an Oscar for Best Screenplay and features one of the most notorious twists in cinema history.
Neil Jordan: The Crying Game was very difficult to finance. I actually had to shoot a fake ending, which was really shameful, because it was the most expensive sequence we shot in the entire movie.
It was kind of ridiculous, we had to close down streets and bring in snow machines and have cranes and all that. But it made the idea of the film acceptable to to financiers, I suppose, so I shot it. Eventually I asked the producers, ‘look can I shoot a proper ending, please?’. And they agreed.
It was a beautiful film to make - and what was more beautiful was the fact that everybody kind of responded to it, you know? It became a part of popular culture in a strange way.
I shared the script with Stephen Rea early on. He’s a great actor, really great, and we’ve kept track of each other over the years. I met him the other night, actually, he’s rehearsing a version of [Samuel Beckett play] Krapp’s Last Tape in the Gaiety at the moment.
I shared the script with Stephen Rea early on. He’s a great actor, really great, and we’ve kept track of each other over the years
— Neil Jordan
When I first cast Stephen in [1982 directorial debut] Angel, I’d only seen him on stage, I hadn’t seen any of his films. From Angel on, we kind of developed a very close relationship - we discovered cinema together, in a way.
As an actor, he’s got a really interesting history, because he’s the only person I know that was directed by Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett and Sam Shepard all in their own works. He really is an interpreter of auteurs. And it’s very gratifying for me to work with him on specific things.
I always felt that Stephen had the option of a big Hollywood career, but I think he made a choice not to go the route that Liam [Neeson] and Cillian [Murphy] and Colin Farrell took. All the work he did with [Derry theatre company] Field Day meant he kind of ended up touring Ireland with Brian Friel plays. He decided to stick with what was important to him, aesthetically and culturally and politically.
The Good Thief (2002)- Saturday November 23, QFT Belfast, 3.30pm. 35mm print screening.
Synopsis: Bob (Nick Nolte) is an aging thief battling an addiction to heroin and a growing gambling problem. Plotting a massive heist of a Monte Carlo casino as his final score, he needs to assemble an amazing team of accomplices while outwitting his police chief nemesis (Tcheky Karyo).
Neil Jordan: They are also showing a movie I made with Nick Nolte called The Good Thief. It came out around the same time as Ocean’s 11 and kind of got lost in a glut of heist movies.
I was asked to do a remake of a movie by Jean-Pierre Melville called Bob The Gambler. I was thinking, ‘how do you get your head around a remake?’. Then I realised, there’s a certain set of stratagems used in the original movie, and I was going to construct this character who designs a fake heist and a real heist. The fake heist is to mislead this cop who is chasing him.
The Good Thief came out around the same time as Ocean’s 11 and kind of got lost in a glut of heist movies.
— Neil Jordan
So I could actually do a version of the original movie, you know, and kind of another version on top of it - sort of a multiple plot kind of thing. And Nick Nolte was great - delightful, really delightful. He was getting on, but he was perfect for that role.
I loved making the film. It’s great that it’s being shown again, because it’s somehow gotten lost over the years.
Tickets via queensfilmtheatre.com, full Belfast Festival programme information at belfastinternationalartsfestival.com
