Word: belfasters
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Abortion controversy? We got it: Citizen Ruth stars Laura Dern as a pro-choice icon who changes her mind. The I.R.A.? No problem: Some Mother's Son has flinty Helen Mirren playing the mother of a Belfast hunger striker. And American racism? Take your pick. Rob Reiner's Ghosts of Mississippi re-enacts the trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the murderer of Medgar Evers; John Singleton's Rosewood is about the attempt to dislodge an affluent black community...
Nice, no. Soulfully conflicted, surely. Neeson grew up Catholic in a small, rural hamlet in Northern Ireland. As a teenager he was torn between a passion for boxing and a love of theater. The world of Chekhov won out in the early '70s, when Neeson joined Belfast's repertory Lyric Players and then graduated to the renowned Abbey Theater in Dublin. There he first tackled drama that dealt with his country's fractious history--in his words, "a lot of Sean O'Casey." (The apolitical Neeson, however, still knew almost nothing about Collins when he came to the role...
With Four Days in July (1985), the tone mellowed; Leigh was kind to both the Catholics and the Protestants of Belfast--though the Republicans had the funnier lines. High Hopes saves its venom for the hilariously rendered posh types and poseurs; toward its central couple of fuzzy Marxists, the film dares to be sweetly sentimental. In Life Is Sweet and especially Secrets & Lies, the working-class families are observed, warts and all, with an insider's love and forgiveness. "One way or another, all my films are about roots and families," says Leigh. "One of my cousins saw Secrets & Lies...
Viewed from one direction, the scene early last week in Portadown, Northern Ireland, evoked a country fair. The meadows surrounding the Protestant church Drumcree, 25 miles southwest of Belfast, were dotted with people, tents and a large marquee. But the sight on the opposite slopes was anything but bucolic. Two rows of razor wire separated the church and the main road into town. Behind this first barrier was a second: a gray wall of armored Land Rovers, parked nose to tail. And behind the second cordon was a third: a phalanx of policemen from the Royal Ulster Constabulary...
That infuriated the Protestants. For three days, gangs of hooded men blocked roads and torched cars. On Wednesday 180 fires raged, and the commander of Belfast's fire brigade called it his department's busiest night since the Luftwaffe bombed the city in 1941. The following day, ruc Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley reversed his orders. Police began shoving Catholic protesters out of the way and escorting Orangemen down Garvaghy Road. Unionist marches unfolded across the province. When Catholic demonstrators tried to block them, the police went to work with their nightsticks. Running battles ensued, with petrol bombs from rioters...