The luck of the Irish (part 2)

The second part of my “The luck of the Irish” blogs will be about the movie „In the name of the father“, which is truly one of my favourite films. Not only has the director managed to create such an emotional, touching and heartbreaking movie, but he also managed to show us how the British police forces unreasonably tended to accuse a lot of Catholics of being members of the IRA, especially in the time of Internment. Through the very great storyline you really get to “feel” the pain the protagonist has to go through while fighting to prove his innocence. What’s shocking is the fact that the movie is based on a true story, the story of the Guildford Four. I didn’t know that before watching it for the first time and when I got to know this fact, I actually started to cry! Admittedly, I was full of loathing and I hated the British the same way the Irish do, but who wouldn’t? I was so fascinated about the movie that afterwards I spent quite some time to collect additional information about the movie.  

The plot is set in Northern Ireland and young Gerry Conlon, who is a Catholic, causes some trouble and to prevent being getting too involved, he is sent to England. There, he finds some Hippie friends and lives his life freely. One night a bomb explodes at a pub in Guilford, which is a town in England, and five people get killed. Gerry Conlon, not being informed about this incident, makes his way back to Northern Ireland in order to share the money he found with his family. All of a sudden, he and three of his friends get arrested by the British police and by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which, we know already, is the British police force in Northern Ireland. They are immediately sent to the UK and are blamed for having fired the bomb. After being physically tortured and mentally exhausted, they do not have the power to be resistant anymore and finally they admit to have committed the crime. After that his father as well gets arrested and they are all sentenced to life imprisonment. In custody, they all have to face some problems. Gerry’s father dies and his son wants to fight for justice in the name of his father (hence the title of the movie!). Gerry gets help from a lawyer who investigates the matter and finds a whole paper record which is not meant to be shown to the Defence as it proves the innocence of all these people. In the end, they are all freed.

Interesting information:

1.) Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Gerry Conlon, did a lot of things in preparation for his role: He lost 30 pounds, spent nights in jail and the cast threw water at him and insulted him. All these things were necessary for him to adjust to the time and to the troubles. He also kept his Irish accent through the whole filming process. In my opinion, he did a remarkable performance!

2.) All these jail scenes in the movie were not shot in a jail in the UK, but in the Kilmainham Goal in Dublin. I myself have visited this jail on my school trip to Ireland and it was all the more shocking. I really could feel this strange atmosphere there. The leaders of the Irish war of Independence were also executed there.

3.) During the movie you will notice the wonderful music. Most of the songs were produced by Bono (from U2) and Gavin Friday. Other artists from the 70’s and Sinead o’Connor can also be heard.
Here is a song by Bono and Gavin Friday, they have put in some Irish elements

4.) The movie was nominated for Seven Academy Awards, but it didn’t win any of them. How dared they didn’t give the movie at least one award??? Obviously, the Academy does not have a good taste.
 

My favourite quote of the movie:
It is a scene between Gerry Conlon and the lawyer

Gerry: You are very good at the English, aren’t you? You see, I don’t understand your language. Justice, mercy, clemency – I literally don’t understand what those words mean. You see, I’d like to put an application to get all my teeth extracted and that way I can put my fist in my mouth and never speak another word of fucking English so long as I live.

I hope I have awakened your interest for this movie because I highly recommend it to you! Maybe we could persuade Fiona to watch it together in the next semester :-) 

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