John McGahern’s final novel has received a luminous cinematic treatment writes Maynooth University’s Graham Price.
Following a rapturous reception in various European and Irish Film Festivals, the long-awaited cinematic version of John McGahern’s final novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, has finally been given a general theatrical release and to say that it was worth the wait is an understatement. Director Pat Collins’ understated and lyrical style does real justice to McGahern’s poetic prose style and the result is that a great film has been made out of a great book. The achievement is made even greater when one considers that That They May Face the Rising Sun was long considered the least filmable of McGahern’s texts.
The plot centres on Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate Ruttledge (Anna Bederke), a couple who have moved to rural Roscommon from England where Kate worked in an art gallery. The film follows them during a year in their seemingly ordinary lives. They farm, Joe writes, Kate paints, and an assortment of memorably colourful neighbours habitually drop by to gossip and hear the news. Although this may seem (as the film itself acknowledges) like a scenario lacking in a conventionally compelling plot, the audience will be held spellbound by the exquisitely drawn, self-contained scenes during which the camera revels in the nuances of everyday human behaviour and interaction.
One significant departure that the movie has made from the novel is the character Joe has been made into a writer and this allows the film to briefly and unobtrusively insert some of the most memorable lines from the book into the script. This reviewer was particularly pleased at the inclusion of this passage from the novel in the film: ‘Happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all’. This Proustian observation encapsulates a central theme contained within McGahern’s literary oeuvre and is of a piece with the movie’s elegiac and nostalgic tone: Life experience needs the counter-signature of memory and (perhaps) imagination for its true meaning and significance to emerge.
Another reason for making Joe a writer is obviously so there can be a biographical connection with John McGahern. This connection is deepened by giving Kate a Scandinavian accent which links her with the real life Annikki Laaksi, McGahern’s first wife. This is different from the novel in which Kate was given an American background which made her seem similar to Madeline McGahern, his second wife. When Joe is asked what his new book is about, he basically says it is not really about anything and that it could not really be described as a novel. This assertion is basically the film providing meta-commentary on both itself and the source text. The movie adds one plot element to the story that was not in the book to add a certain degree of dramatic tension: This concerns the question of whether Kate will leave her home by the lake and go back to England to look after her art gallery now that her former business partner is leaving its stewardship.
That They May Face the Rising Sun contains a great ensemble cast of experienced Irish character actors. Significantly, the character of Jamesie (Philip Dolan), who played a very prominent role in the book, is given a more equal status alongside the other colourful characters who inhabit the world of the Ruttledges by the lake. Significantly, when Joe is thinking about ‘those two people who mean so much to me’ during a Christmas dinner scene in the film, he is referring to his uncle The Shah and friend Bill Evans rather than to Jamesie and his wife Mary as was the case in the book. Jamesie is also made a less comedic figure than he had been in McGahern’s text. This is possibly because the director wished to avoid any accusations of Stage Irishry being present in the film. Although the movie is clearly set in Ireland because of the references to a few Irish placenames, the dark shadow of her traumatic past is not present as it was in the novel. The film avoids any mention of clerical abuse and IRA violence and focuses instead on the more universal human themes for which McGahern’s work is so renowned. It is not certain when exactly the movie is set but the reference to the impending advent of telecommunications in rural Ireland gives the impression that it is the 1980s.
Two actors in this film who deserve to be singled out for special praise are Sean McGinley, who plays Jamesie’s London exile brother Johnny, and Lalor Roddy as the curmudgeonly but haunted neighbour, Patrick Ryan. Both McGinley and Ryan expertly convey a deep well of loss and disappointment beneath a braggadocio surface. One of the saddest moments in the movie occurs when Ruttledge gets up from having a drink with Johnny to go and buy some supplies in the local shop and Johnny grabs him by the arm and says: ‘You wouldn’t leave me? You wouldn’t forget me?’. From those words and the fragile tone in which they were uttered, one clearly gets the sense that this is a man from whom all confidence and sense of security has been kicked out by years of rejection and disappointment. Significantly, the most unlikable and villainous character from the novel, John Quinn, has been left out entirely from the film. The reason for this is probably that Pat Collins did not want any of the characters in the cinematic version of That They They May Face the Rising Sun to be judged as villains. The Intention was to present nuanced and complicated characters who could not in any way be viewed as stock or cardboard cut out figures.
The use of music in this film is highly effective, particularly in one moment near the end that involves the laying out of a body. Irene and Linda Buckleys’ original score permeate scenes and shots involving both natural and man-made environments and help to create a pantheistic sense of a divinity invisibly existing because of the serene flow of worldly existence. The ultimate impression one takes away from this cinematic experience is that of having watched the work of a supremely humane artist of the medium of cinema. The movie’s central message about the importance of civility, understanding, and basically good manners when dealing with others is verbalised near the story’s beginning by the calm but quietly forceful Joe Ruttledge. As a piece of cinema, it will not be to the taste of those who judge films primarily on their ability to create dramatic, traditional plots, but will be embraced by those who like their movies more languid and meditative. That They May Face the Rising Sun is certainly a prime example of the latter cinematic style.
5/5
Talking Movies 