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Letters
Ruth Barton, O'Kane
Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Film Studies UCD,
responds to David Rane's article on Irish documentary features
(Film Ireland 101).
Dear Editor
I would like to take issue with David Rane's
article in Film Ireland 101 – 'Irish Documentary:
Breaking into Europe'. In it, he admirably lays out a three-point
plan for developing Irish creative documentaries aimed at
the European festival circuit and thereafter, the European
market. He appears to believe that the creative documentary
is not a form that comfortably fits within Irish non-fiction
filmmaking practices as they stand, and he does not refer
to any history of creative documentary making in Ireland.
While I agree with many of his points, I think it is startling
that Rane makes no reference to some of the extraordinary
creative documentaries that have been made here and that he
ignores the work of established documentarists such as John
T. Davis (The Uncle Jack etc.) or Desmond Bell (The
Hard Road to Klondyke etc.). How would Rane categorise
Bob Quinn's Atlantean? Surely that fits into his definition
of the form as, 'more cinematic, more ambitious in style and
content, [containing] personal essays, experimental pieces
and films that possess a definite authorial or directorial
'voice'.'? If you include the works emanating from the diaspora,
then you must consider Peter Lennon's The Rocky Road to
Dublin or Alen MacWeeney's Travellers as classic
examples of the creative documentary. Arguably you could go
back to Man of Aran to find the first, foundational
Irish example of the form. Rane does namecheck Alan Gilsenan
and Liam McGrath, but they are only part of a tradition that
has firm roots in Irish filmmaking and has provided an oblique
and personal vision of Irish life through the past decades.
We have recently been flooded with overblown, didactic American
documentaries that deliver their message via the aesthetics
of the bumper sticker. Let's hope that Rane succeeds in invigorating
the Irish creative documentary – maybe by paying some
attention to its history to date.
Ruth Barton
O'Kane Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Film Studies
University College Dublin
If you would like to voice an opinion about
any aspect of Irish film culture, please e-mail letters@filmireland.net
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