Response to 'Going Places' from Lenny Abrahamson

In his article in Film Ireland, Kevin Moriarty gives out about what he sees as the failure of indigenous Irish films to find a big audience at home; an audience comparable to the one international titles regularly draw. There are all sorts of things to take exception to in what he wrote. I'll concentrate on making just a few points:

He talks about 'the audience' a lot, as if it were one big undifferentiated lump. The truth is that there are lots of different audiences for lots of different types of film. A film with a modest budget doesn't need to find a mass audience to make sense financially. A film need not find the audience; it needs to find an audience. And as the ways of distributing films become cheaper and more flexible (digital projection, downloading, etc.) it is likely that finding an audience for a non-mainstream film will become easier and more cost effective. As a result, making films for niche audiences will become increasingly financially viable.

Kevin also seems to think – though his argument is never clear on this point – that the artistic value of a film can only be measured by audience numbers. What about the filmmaker as artist, I hear you protest. Well Kevin takes a hard line on that one. He writes that the creative artist should be able to cater to punters just out for a night of entertainment 'while still satisfying all other artistic aspirations through a multi-layered approach'. That's quite a claim. I'd love to hear him explain how this 'multi-layered approach' would work exactly. But beyond the 'how?' is the 'why?' There isn't a one-size-fits-all principle in literature, theatre, visual art, etc. Why should there be one in film? We don't expect an author of serious fiction to wrap up her message in a chic-lit plotline. If only Jack Yeats had mastered the art of painting a kitten in a boot while subtly working through his ideas of colour and form, who knows what he could have achieved?

Kevin also talks about the need to cultivate an export market in Irish cinema, as in all other areas of industry in a small country like ours – a kind of Riverdance meets Ryanair vision of Irish cultural production. And according to Kevin it shouldn't be rocket science either. All we need to do is to write good, accessible stories and market them properly. Well, if it's that easy we should be able to point to some big success stories in other countries, there must be other small territories with a thriving film export market. Hmm. Take a look at the top 50 films at the Irish box office last (or any) year and what you will find is not a varied mix of popular cinema from around the world, what you will find are big American movies. There is of course the occasional break-out hit from somewhere else (just like our Once broke out in the US), or a Richard Curtis romcom from the UK, but these are the exceptions. What Kevin is suggesting we achieve with our 5-or-6-features-a-year domestic industry, nobody anywhere else has managed to do. In terms of mass appeal, the star system, marketing budgets, distribution networks etc., etc., Hollywood is untouchable. And why should we want to compete with it, anyway? One commodity the world is not short of is mass entertainment. It is, however, very short of great cinema.

The quality of independent Irish films has increased dramatically in the last 10 years with the support of a very progressive Irish Film Board. As a result there is a healthy and growing local audience for Irish cinema and there are substantial economic benefits to the country in terms of employment and the spending of budgets locally. Comparisons with the audience numbers generated by mainstream mass entertainment are not helpful or even meaningful. And during a period of economic contraction when government departments are looking critically at every euro spent, an ill-judged piece like the one in Film Ireland is fundamentally irresponsible.

Lenny Abrahamson