Word: irelands
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Like those other great military geniuses of 20th century revolution--Trotsky, Zapata, Guevara--Ireland's Michael Collins comes to a mean, messy and untimely end, a victim of assassination and, in a larger sense, the victim of his own romantic reputation. But unlike these men, with whom he was completely comparable in the cunning and charisma that are invaluable in rallying the armies of the night in wars of liberation, he has remained a stubbornly obscure figure...
Even in his native land he is more shadowy myth figure than living historical presence. Maybe that's because he died when he was only 31 years old, his work and personality still unfinished, therefore not fully knowable or easily summarizable. Maybe it's because Ireland, despite its bloody history, is a conservative country, uncomfortable in its debt to a founding father whose greatest gift was for violence. And maybe all that is about to change. For Michael Collins the enigma is now Michael Collins the movie--a $30 million epic by writer-director Neil Jordan, auteur previously...
...some very obvious ways, Jordan has told this story well (the film is keenly anticipated in Ireland, where it will enjoy a Jurassic Park-style wide release; the distributor, Warner Bros., is understandably more skittish about its reception in Britain). Jordan's reconstruction of revolutionary Dublin is visually impressive and historically persuasive. His take on Collins is, in its way, equally attractive, if somewhat less than fully dimensional. Collins is presented as revolutionary warriors generally are by their admirers: as a practical soldier, a man of rough humor, mostly inarticulate idealism and, perhaps, a certain unspoken regret about that "talent...
What's true of the overall narrative is also true of the way its major figures have been conceived. There are times when one can't help feeling that the history most pointedly informing Michael Collins is not that of tragic Ireland but of lightsome Hollywood, making sure that past and principles don't weigh too heavily on a biopic's audience. You can see this in the bantering palship of Collins and his faithful sidekick Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), and in the largely antic rivalry that develops between them over the affections of pert Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts...
...Collins to join the peace negotiations knowing they were bound to produce an agreement that would be unacceptable to many of his countrymen, hoping thereby to destroy a dangerous rival. But, says Charles Townshend, a professor at Keele University in England and a specialist on the British rule of Ireland, Collins was anything but the "simple rebel." He was, in fact, this shadow government's minister of finance and perhaps the ablest politician in the cabinet. He was not gulled by his President into negotiating with the Brits or fooled by them into taking less than he could have...