RA6E 12.
CONNECTION • JULY 1993
VIDEO VIEWS
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Pat Cleary hails from Cork
A Bit of Name Dropping For Celtic Cinephiles
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By MARK HARRIS
Hollywood has always acted as a magnet for "foreigners," although Tinsel Towns relations with emigre artists have not always been happy. Ironically, recent immigrants to the U.S. and first-generation Americans tended to fare better behind the camera than did their pedigreed compatriots.
If the latter could point to a few limited success stories such as F.W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang, the former could boast of literally dozens of "winners", including Joseph von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray, George Cukor, Frank Capra, and Elia Kazan.
With the possible exception of the Hungarians, no ethnic group has contributed more to the development of the seventh art than have cineastes of Irish descent. Indeed, during the silent era, it was said that the percentage of Irish directors in Hollywood was about the same as that of Jewish producers.
While the numbers have dropped somewhat in recent years, the "Hibernian Connection" continues to leave an indelible impression on our collective cinematic psyche.
So who were these directors?
For starters, they were the fathers of slapstick comedy, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett, all of whom had Irish antecedents. When cream pies and pratfalls gave way to the sophisticated dialogue of screwball comedy, Leo McCarey picked up the torch of Gaelic humour, often with pixillated ideas that came to him while driving to the studio, each morning, dead drunk.
One of the greatest Celtic filmmakers liked to pretend that he was of "pure English" stock. It wasn't until Donald Spoto published The Dark Side of Genius that we learned suspense master Alfred Hitchcock had three grandparents who had roots in the Ould Sod.
Thanks to his screen versions of The Informer and The Quiet Man, John Ford is unquestionably the best-known Irish-American director. Although often compartmentalized as a maker of peerless westerns, Ford was a closet intellectual who spoke nine languages and read books whenever his rough drinking buddies weren't looking.
With a last name like his, Robert
(Nanook of the North) Flaherty obviously had ancestors who hailed from the Arans. Who could be better qualified than this non-fiction filmmaker to create a feature called Man of Aran? The son of a Spanish mother and an Irish father (the same combination that produced Eamon De Valera), Raoul Walsh directed some of the most exciting genre pictures of the Thirties andForties, including The Roaring Twenties, High Sierra, Operation Burma, and White Heat.
After leaving Hollywood (where he'd helmed Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon), John Huston, of Scots-Irish extraction, lived for 20 years in a picturesque Hibernian castle. Other Irish-American figures of note include Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Walt Disney.
In a column of this nature, one can do little besides name names. Suffice it say that, in the months to come, the accompanying careers will be considered in greater detail, especially in regard to those Irish-American films that can be checked out at video stores.
Toes Will Involuntarily Tap To These New Sounds
By NATHAN ROBERTS
VANCOUVER — There is a new locally produced album that brilliantly blends West-coast inspired melodies and poetry with the upbeat, cheerful sound of Sechelt minstrels, Tom Richardson and Carl Nelson.
Featuring Tom's handmade dulcimers, Precipice is a succesful blending of highland pipes, bodhran, guitar, harmonica and synthesizers which produce a rich pleasing sound. Toes will involuntarily tap as popular marches, jigs and reels, hornpipes and sweet airs are given a fresh face with Tom's sparkling dulcimer and Carl's expressive chords.
If you enjoy the music of Breton harpist, Alan Stivel, as I do, you'll fall in love with the belllike qualities of Tom's modified dulcimer. Its dancing sub-rnythms, variations and embellishments enhance the basic melodies in ways never imagined. Listen to the "cascading" effect in track three.
Tom's own Cold Shower reel is a spritely melody which blends well into a jazzed up version of another local, now world-famous hornpipe The Clumsy Lover, penned by one-time Vancouver resident, Neil Dickie
Without prying, is there some sort of underlying connection between these tunes Tom?
Carl and Tom's work left me wanting a relaxing cruise up the Sunshine Coast. The light-hearted nature of the album is balanced off with Carl's recitation of his deliciously melancholy and thoughtful poem Precipice.
I must say, it's a real pleasure to hear such a heartfelt and original production coming out of the legion pipeband scene. Tom is a pipe-major with the Sechelt
Legion Band which recently won the grade four class at the Legion Games in Hope.
This is the firstproduction from Tom's Celtic Craft label, however, I'm sure that this team will realize their full potential in future releases.
I highly recommend this tape/ CD to all who love lore and music and wish to hear more of it with local significance and West-coast flair. I can't wait to hear more from this label. Keep up the great work, guys!
Celtic Roots Explored
Nell Stallard and Lydia Lang-staff entertained St. Andrew's and Caledonian Society of Victoria members with song and history at Holyrood House in Victoria on June 3.
The ancient Celtic calendar of festivals was explained. After Lydia explored each festival, Nell sang traditional songs relating to the various aspects of the season.
The interrelationship between the Druid eight-fold year plan and agrarian cultures was har-
moniously acknowledged in the folk music. Songs included "The Flower of Scotland", the newer "All Soul's Day" and several more traditional pieces.
Several aspects of the festivals were examined: the natural seasons, the astronomical relationship to psychology and metaphysics, and the ages of man.
The St. Andrew's Society and the Victoria Caledonian Benevolent Society united in 1870 and are the eleventh oldest society in British Columbia.