He was more comfortable when we fictionalised and played his myth, dramatised the myth of his life story rather than the actuality of it. That was something we were aware of though, and possibly I went the other way”
Film Making and Politics
Though tremendously self-effacing in conversation, McGuckian's output is impressive, making her one of the more successful Directors to come out of Irish Cinema. What then does she make of the newer breed of film makers and films coming out of Ireland? “When I started out there were a couple of very good years, and we all got to make films, which was great. It seemed to stop there for a while. We were back in Galway at the film festival there and there were lots of shorts which were very good, and a lot of young film directors emerging which is good. I think all countries have this cycle. It's such a fashionable thing, a trendy thing, isn't it? It goes in trends. It's great to see more and more people making movies. I'm suspecting and hoping that the technology change will help smaller countries make films that are more culturally indigenous. When it gets to the stage that digital film making is cheaper than negative film making, which it isn't quite yet”.
Is there, though, a noticeable difference in the new generation of film makers in Ireland. What would she see as the contrast between her contemporaries and newer directors? “The voice has changed. Maybe because it’s a different generation. We seemed to be a little bit more politicised. The film making now seems to be a little less politicised, a little less social at the moment. The younger generation grew up in a peace making process whereas I was born and grew up in Northern Ireland in the 70's. That's a very particular time. As did John, and we have that inculcated in our thinking. Someone, who maybe grew up in Dublin, had their formative years in Dublin during the 80's and 90's, might have a very different political framework. There are different issues now. I'm not sure if they're issues that travel internationally. One thing I think we've always messed up in Ireland, or not got as part of a film making culture is the concept that it's an international industry. The budgets and the amounts of money involved are such that you can't have an indigenous film industry isolated and neutral on its own, or the neutrality complex as I call it[laughs]. Even the Americans can't do it, they still need foreign sales. The only country that comes close to doing it, but on an utterly subsidised level, is France for French film making”.
If it's true to say that there's a growth in interest in Political films, particularly in the States, it would also be true to say that this is primarily, or possibly exclusively in the arena of documentaries. Is it dissapointing that there aren't more politically charged dramas? “I probably don't subscribe to the set that dramatic film making is a good medium for political exploration, however good drama can't be anything other than political. It’s a medium where for the stories to have any depth they have to be all encompassing. For me The Bridge of San Luis Rey which is set in 18th Century Peru, but written in 1927, as a piece of fiction, has a political voice as a piece about the nature of tragedy. It also has an individualistic and spiritual, emotional voice about fear and mortality, and facing mortality. There are various layers of thesis in the film. If you set out to make a film with a voice, it should innately, if you're socially connected, be politicised in some way or another. If it's a genre piece with a mandate solely to entertain it may not do, but interestingly enough the good American genre films, the good spy films, the good war films, they tend to have their own political agenda. They may cop out towards the end and that can be a pity, but the fever of documentary making coming out of America is fantastic, and I think documentary making is probably the right medium for immediate political comment”.