Local Heroes

From last Friday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent (22/6/2007)

When rising Irish director Graham Cantwell was starting out in the job, he was told something that speak volumes about making a living from the film industry in Ireland.

"I remember someone telling me when I was starting off, 'You're neither rich enough nor poor enough to be a filmmaker'," he recalls. "By that, they meant rich enoughto have the support to keep you going and poor enough to be used to livingoff nothing! It takes perseverance alright."

It takes extra perseverance when you have to film in the soon-to-be demolished Clancy Barracks on Dublin's northside on a cold early morning. Cantwell is speaking to me from the location shoot of a new low-budget Irish movie he's directing called Anton, a thriller based in the border counties in the 1970s and set against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The title character Anton (played by Anthony Fox, who also wrote the screenplay) is a young man who grows disillusioned with his dead-end life in Cavan and gets swept up in the resurgent terror campaign of the IRA. But as he and his friend Brendan (Andy Smith) become ever more immersed in the violence, Anton loses his faith in the cause, and looks for a way out, little realising that his family and friends have been dragged into the chaos also.

The dilapidated barracks in which the shoot is taking place is soon to be transformed into a swanky urban village, but for today, it's serving as a 1970s Parisian bedsit. It requires a good deal of innovation and imagination to effect such a transformation, but those are the qualities that Ireland's young filmmakers have in spades. What they don't have, as I discover on the day I visit the set, is funding and support.

The scene being shot is the morning after a drink and drug fuelled session in the apartment. Four actors are getting their make-up done, quickly changing into costumes to avoid developing hypothermia, and getting into a variety of sleeping positions. It's a slow, painstaking process, where the inconvenient and rebellious daylight outside the window threatens to delay the whole shoot.

Graham Cantwell is in a good position to express opinions on the Irish film industry, having worked as an actor, director and producer for the past 10 years. His short film *A Dublin Story *was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2004 and won the Kodak Tiernan McBride award at the Galway Film Fleadh.

"For filmmakers in Ireland there are two separate entities: the Irish Film Industry and the film industry in Ireland, which is foreign companies coming in," the articulate 30-year-old says. "The two really depend on each other. We need the larger American or English productions like *Becoming Jane* or *King Arthur* coming across to support the indigenous film industry because there isn't a hell of a lot of support for very low-budget Irish filmmaking."

He continues: "Film-making is tight everywhere, but the difference between us and England, say, is that they have a huge television industry and that supports people. It's not perfect, but it's easier for crews to get work, as there's so many regional bodies through BBC and Channel 4. Over here, we only have RTE and the Irish Film Board, who have very limited resources and can't fund everything."

Be that as it may, low budget Irish cinema has been thrown into the limelight internationally in recent months. Lenny Abrahamson’s forthcoming release Garage, written by Adam and Paul’s Mark O’Halloran and starring comedian Pat Shortt, won the prestigious CICAE Art and Essai Cinema Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. On top of that, John Carney’s musical romance Once continues to garner rave reviews in the US and has been rhapsodised in Time Out, Variety and the Washington Post. What’s more, the influential website OscarWatch has installed Carney as a favourite to be nominated for an Academy Award next Spring.

The backbone of success stories like Garage and Once lies in the tax incentive scheme known as Section 481, which has been in place since the early '90s and is secured until 2008. However, other countries – in Eastern Europe in particular –have adopted similar schemes, which, coupled with lower cost economies, hasdiminished Ireland's once shining standing from the heyday of the 1990s,when the likes of Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan were filmed here.

The Minister for Arts and Tourism John O'Donoghue awarded an extra €1.5million in supplementary funding to the Film Board in 2005 and increased its2006 budget by 21 per cent to somewhere in the region of €20 million.Needless to say, the issues of funding and making a living in the industrydominate any discussion with filmmakers in Ireland.

"It's understandable that the government only have so much financialresources to give over to the Film Board," Cantwell explains. "But there isa shortfall, a lack of support for Irish filmmakers. Plus considering thelevel that we're operating at, it needs to be subsidised if it's reallygoing to work. We need support if we're going to have a cultural voice, ifwe're going to be able to make films that compete on an internationalstage."

Anton's producer Patrick Clarke is the go-to man for the realities offunding in Ireland today. Clarke is a highly experienced actor and producer,having worked in New York and LA since arriving there illegally in the mid'80s. His well-receieved acting and writing debut *Beyond the Pale* (1999)took three years to finance. On Anton, Clarke realised that it's oftenjust a case of who you know and calling in some favours.

"I just came from Mountjoy becuase we needed to shoot there for an hour ortwo, plus they had garda uniforms from the 1970s in the museum there,"Clarke says. "You find people are very helpful when they hear you're tryingto do a film on limited funds.

"We were up in Cavan last, using three different farms owned by AnthonyFox's relatives so right away we didn't have to worry about locationsbecause it was all enclosed. It's when you come down to places likeDublin when you encounter problems. You're like the daddy for 30-odd people."

"I've worked a lot in America and what I find is there's no infrastructurein place here, no mechanism to support filmmaking on a greater scale," he adds.
"Here, there's only one company that provides lights for film. Otherwise youhave to import it. Also, there's only one place that provides cameras so youhave to book them way in advance. There's only about 20 people doing soundin the country, 10 continuity people, half a dozen gaffers. We couldn't puttogether a crew when we started filming last September because the peopleand the equipment just were not available."

As producer, Clarke is well-versed in the nuances of film funding andmake suggestions as to what can – and should - be done to make theprocess smoother forall concerned.
"Look at it this way," he explains. "There's the Film Board, whose entireannual budget to facilitate the development of filmmaking in this country isnot even the fifth of the budget of one Hollywood film.

"It's up to the Government to provide support , but it's also up to thefilmmakers too to make films that are interesting enough to reach wideraudiences internationally. Irish films tend to be just that - Irish films -with subject matter that's not very identifiable outside this country."

Clarke continues: "We may be loved in the US, but the reality is an Irishfilm never opens on a wide release in America. *The Wind the Shakes theBarley* and *Michael Collins* both opened in small niche markets in LA, NewYork and Chicago. I'd love to see Irish films in the mould ofHollywood movies where it's irrelevant whether the subject matter is Irish or not."

In terms of raising funding for Anton, Clarke pursued less traditionalsources of revenue. "There's a kind of welfare mentality toward filmmakinghere because everyone goes to the Government for money when they're starting out," he says.

"I think there's other ways to do that now. The Irish economy is awash with money, especially in the corporate sector and private sector so that's whatwhere we targetted essentially. We had €5,000 in the bank starting this. Sowe went out to people in the business community to pitch and they said,'Everyone needs a leg up' and 'We admire what you're doing so we'll help youif we can'."

As I point out to Clarke and Cantwell, the average age of everyone on theset of Anton is 30. Is there a new confidence in young people today who want to pursue a career in filmmaking and is that confidence justified?

Clarke answers that it is a great thing to see, but that a harsh realitysoon sets in for Ireland's most ambitious and talented filmmakers. "Yes there is more confidence, but where do they go to make their first film?", Clarke says. "I think it's tragic because we have tons of youngpeople who want to try something different, they want to try something inthe arts. They don't want to get into normal professions. They're going to realise that they're going to have to leave this country to go to where thework in film and TV is because it's not here. And that brain drain is tragicbecause they'll go away and someone else will get the benefit of that."

Director Cantwell takes a different slant on the question."To be honest,what any artistic career is about is perseverance and a belief in what you're doing," Cantwell states. "If you believe you have the talent, it'sreally about persisting over resistance and to keep at it against the odds.
"I've been making films for 11 years, but it's really only this year that things have started happening.

"It's good that so many young people are pursuing film as a career. The culture of a nation is captured in the art of the time, and cinema is the major art form of this day and age. The mass art at the moment is cinema andwe really need to be representing ourselves through that medium. Yes, there are commercial considerations, but at the same time we need to support those low budget features that try to capture something of our history and how we are today."

With that point in mind, my eye goes back to the actors waiting on the set and on one in particular. It's none other than Scottish author Irvine Welsh,a friend of Cantwell's, and whose novel Trainspotting was adapted into a hit1996 film that soon took on the moniker of Britain's 'state of the nation'movie for the 1990s.

I put it to Cantwell that perhaps Welsh's presence on set is a presentiment that *Anton* could be Ireland's state of the nation movie. Or perhaps that movie has come and gone already?
"I think we're on the cusp of something," Cantwell admits. "With the amount of non-nationals who have arrived her, it's a cultural hotpot inIreland now. It's going to be the greatest opportunity forIreland to embrace that and take it forward and to look at our reputation for being the most welcoming. Here's our chance to prove that or disprove that."

He continues: "I'd love to see a culture here that's fully integrated, thatembraces all the cultures that come in, and allows them to influence us andat the same time not lose our own identity. It's only through integrationthat we can develop, that you can create. The alternative is to stick to theold values and destroy something new that could really blossom. That'sreally where the film industry can capture something and portray it in acertain light to the Irish population and further afield. I don't think that has happened yet, but I think it will. Any day now."

Declan Cashin





-- http://lowlyjourno.blogspot.com/

Just His Luck

Interview with Eric Bana from last Friday's Day and Night magazine in the Irish Independent (22/6/2007)

You might have seen and, if you’re anything like me, drooled over him in Troy, Hulk and Munich, but can you honestly say you know anything about Australian actor Eric Bana? He’s never in the press for bad-boy or difficult behaviour (unlike his fellow Antipodean Russell Crowe). He’s not out banging the publicity drums for temporarily fashionable charities. This 38-year-old self-effacing bloke is probably the most famous non-famous star working today. And that’s just the way he likes it.

“Fame is easy to me because, quite honestly, I’m not that famous,” he says in his strong accent. “I can go out right now for a wander and I won’t have a problem. Someone might occasionally recognise me, but I have a very easy level of fame and I wouldn’t swap it for anything. There’s a perception that anyone who’s even remotely famous has this crazy life and that’s just not true.”

Be that as it may, on this hot Friday afternoon in the St Regis Grand hotel in Rome, Bana is prompting a flurry of excitement among the gathered international press, particularly among the female contingen. There is no escaping it: Bana is an extraordinarily handsome man. He’s tall (almost 6’3”), dark, built like a Greek warrior (a physical hangover from his Troy days) and, on the day I meet him, immaculately attired in a light blue shirt, dark navy jeans and sporting the kind of designer stubble that no mere mortal man could achieve.

Bana is in the Eternal City to talk about Lucky You, a romantic drama set amongst the world of professional poker in Las Vegas. Bana plays Huck, an ace card player with a huge chip on his shoulder regarding his gambling legend father L.C (played by Robert Duvall). Huck’s life is all about the game and not making connections with other people in order to keep his edge. That way of life is challenged, however, when he meets aspiring singer Billie (Drew Barrymore), whose sweet honesty and emotional intuition forces Huck to confront his father around the table and away from it, and ultimately to learn to “play poker, but have a life too.”

Lucky You is directed by Curtis Hanson, the gifted helmer of such diverse movies as 8 Mile, In Her Shoes and his Oscar-winning magnum opus LA Confidential. The movie very much uses the game of poker to metaphorise key questions about life and love, and Bana relished the chance to play a romantic lead that audiences would have to struggle to empathise with.

“Huck is a bit of a d*ck at the start of the movie,” Bana tells me. “You can see he’s quite selfish and immature, but at the same time, I think there’s something envious about that. I think we all wish we could be so careless and self-centred, but life dictates that most of us can’t be. So I hoped people would relate to that.

“For me, I found the father-son stuff to be most interesting part of the film. It’s kind of like Greek mythology: that whole notion of the son defeating the father in order to become a man.”

While Huck and his father L.C might be in conflict with one another, it was the opposite for Bana when it came to sharing the screen with the legendary Duvall. “He’s my favourite actor in the world,” Bana reveals. “His consistency of great work all throughout his career is really inspiring to someone like myself. But it’s the way Bob embraces life away from his work that I admire most. I remember one day I was talking to him about the old days in the 60s and 70s and I asked, ‘How did you survive that crazy time with all your friends doing coke and going into rehab?’ And he just said [breaking into an uncanny impression of Duvall], ‘Hobbies, you got to have hobbies! I have horses. Go race your cars [Bana is an avid racing driver and fan], stick to your hobbies’. That’s a great lesson from someone like him to impart to a younger actor: having real interests outside the work keeps you motivated and keeps you fresh.”

Maintaining his life firmly outside of the Hollywood bubble has been one of the defining aspects of Bana’s career to date. Born in Melbourne to a German mother and Croatian father (his surname is actually Banadinovich), he set his heart on becoming an actor after seeing his fellow countryman Mel Gibson in the Mad Max movies (“Parts one and two are awesome…we don’t talk about the third,” he jokes).

He moved to Sydney to study acting and began doing stand-up comedy, landing TV roles in the sketch show Full Frontal and a short stint on his own titular comedy show. Bana made his big-screen debut in the The Castle in 1997, but it was his astonishing portrayal of the notorious Melbourne criminal Chopper Read in Chopper (2000) that seared Bana into the national and international consciousness.

It’s a role that still follows him around to this day. “It was a seminal film for me and I’m really proud of it,” he says. “For a movie that nobody made any money on, it sure has lived on! It’s the one film that always comes up and I’m always surprised that people have seen it.”

Ridley Scott cast Bana in Black Hawk Down soon after, but in 2003, he took his first steps into the mainstream by playing the title role in Ang Lee’s movie adaptation of the Incredible Hulk. The movie was panned by critics, and was deemed a commercial disappointment, so much so that the follow up movie, currently in production, has been taken over by a new director and star, Edward Norton.

I carefully broach the topic of the new Hulk movie, expecting it to be a sore point. Bana effects mock surprise and gasps, ‘What? There’s a new movie? Who’s in it? Edward Norton? Who’s that?!” He then laughs and says: “You know, if Hulk opened today and did the same business it did, everyone would say it’s a huge hit. It made $140m!

“But when Hulk came out, it was after the first Spiderman so everyone stupidly thought every comic book movie was going to make $750m and Hulk didn’t. The movie is very dark so it probably didn’t get as much as much of an audience as it could have. Personally I think the film could have been a little more fun, but that was the film Ang Lee set out to make and we all knew that.

“I’m really proud of it and I think it’s unique in that genre. There’s no ill feeling whatsoever. It was an amazing experience that created a lot of opportunities for me. Steven Spielberg said himself that’s what made him cast me in Munich. So I can’t have any regrets about it. And the fact that Edward Norton is doing the next one is the icing on the cake. He’s one of the great actors of my generation and I personally find that flattering. To be honest, there was never a conversation we had about a sequel, so I have no qualms about it.”

Bana still lives in Melbourne with his wife Rebecca and young Klaus (7) and Sophia (5). He categorically has ruled out moving to Los Angeles for his career’s sake and likes to take breaks in between movies so he can spend as much time at home as possible. But the star says that working pattern came about due to the nature of the projects he was involved in, rather than by any conscious decision to work less.

“So many of the movies I’ve done have been so long in production that it just turned out that way,” he explains. “You work on movies like Hulk or Troy and they’re huge. So if I have less product than other actors my age, it’s because I haven’t done movies that only took 2-3 months to shoot. I have done less movies than my peers, but I couldn’t have done it any other way. And there’s no point living in LA for me, because nothing is shot there. I just made a small movie back home [Romulus my Father] and my next one [The Time Traveller’s Wife] is likely to be shot in Canada. So if I moved to LA, I’d spend the whole time going, ‘Sh*t! Why the hell did I do that?!’”

Right now, Bana is an actor very much in control of his career and is extremely grounded in his attitudes to Hollywood and fame. “I never had expectations of Hollywood and I still don’t,” he states. “Essentially the benefit of working in Hollywood is that you have more to choose from. I now have scripts that come in from Australia and ones that come in from overseas. That’s the most you can expect.

“Besides, it’s too late for me anyway! I don’t think at my age you suddenly can pop and turn into a huge star. People never really get to see me as myself, in my own accent. For American actors, it’s different because people feel like they know them better. So I think the ability of the public to get hold of what I am is harder.” Bana pauses for a second and then laughs: “I’m optimistic that it will stay that way for me!”

Declan Cashin

Stag trumps Hag

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

The 'fag hag' is finally getting her moment in the spotlight, having spent decades playing a supporting role in the never-ending drama/romance/horror/satire that is a gay man's life.

Two out and proud ladies have edited a celebration of fag-haggery in all its glory, entitled 'Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys'.

For the uninitiated, a fag hag is a gay man's straight gal pal, who has at various points served as date, beard, pub/club companion and therapist to said gay man (and vice versa). Think Grace in Will and Grace — or Niles in Frasier!

I've long suspected that the gay man/fag hag dynamic has had its day, and I think one of the reasons why is hit upon in this book by contributor Simon Doonan. He claims that fag hags have become obsolete because "straight men are now less obnoxious to be around".

From the gay man's point of view, Doonan makes a good argument. Metrosexualisation – itself a byproduct of gay culture – has prompted a lot of straight men to embrace different lifestyles and cast off engrained attitudes. They know they cannot hold onto old prejudices and fears if they are to function in today's world.

As a case in point, I have a few straight male friends who have no problem going to gay bars with me. They're like my 'fag stags', if you will: guys who are either so secure in their own sexuality and/or are such good friends that they have no qualms about socialising in gay venues.
Gay and straight men have both been known to equally intimidate the other, but, with some very serious exceptions, this appears to be fading away. The simple shared experience of being men might just be enough to transcend sexual labels. I think both sides can gain things from these friendships. Except for the kissing of the girls. My straight friends can keep that one for themselves.

Rainbow Warriors

Greena Fail? Bertie and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Vote? Who'd have thunk it,eh?

Laa Laa politicians

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

As our recent General Election taught us, you really would have to be mad to be a politician. Sometimes, however, politicians prove to us just how mad they can be.



Take the latest development from Poland's frighteningly entertaining right-wing government. Ewa Sowinska, the State-appointed children's rights watchdog, wants the Teletubbies banned from Polish TV because the show seems to promote homosexuality.



Ewa was gravely concerned because the male Tinky Winky was seen carrying a purse, which apparently "may have a homosexual undertone". That's because gays carry purses, you see (at last! The excuse I've been waiting for!). Ewa's even recruited psychologists to assess the pink threat posed by the foursome.



The whole thing would be funny, if it wasn't sad and sad if it wasn't funny (as an aside, if the Teletubbies are guilty of promoting anything, it's drugs, seeing how surreal and trippy the whole show is).



Of course, this isn't the first time that kiddie's entertainment has been subject to our modern pink witch-hunts. March of the Penguins and SpongeBob Squarepants have also been attacked recently by evangelical right-wingers in the US for supposed gay leanings.



But seriously folks, relax. A lot of popular kids entertainment caries allegorical messages, some of which, admittedly, could be perceived as gay readings. To pick some recent examples, just look at Shrek (where Princess Fiona must conceal her true self) and both A Shark's Tale and Happy Feet (where a kid is rejected by disappointed parents and peers for being 'different'). Most comic book adaptations, from Spiderman to X Men, are also loaded with gay subtexts.



But if double meanings are present, they're not designed as part of some insidious plot to corrupt children's minds or push some agenda down their throats. If anything, it's the opposite.
For the most part, these kids' shows and movies simply communicate messages of tolerance, acceptance and being true to yourself — all pretty destructive and harmful things for kids to learn, I think you'd agree.





But why teach kids to be open-minded when you can further your political career by making them fear the Teletubbies instead? Politics is really just Laa Laa, isn't it?

Cash Me If You Can

From Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

I'm really stupid about money. I don't mean that I'm especially reckless with cash, but I just can't seem to get my head around the whole concept of managing it.





To be perfectly honest, money baffles me. I love having it — but that's where any relationship ends. Like the Taoiseach, I don't 'do'savings accounts, mainly because I don't want to have to go to a bank and get information about one (which I'm convinced was Bertie's real reason too).





Mention any economic-related topic to me and, like Homer Simpson, my brain just announces, 'I'm outta here', my eyes glaze over and I drop to the ground in a lifeless, lobotomised heap.The same goes for tax. When it comes to PAYE and PRSI, I aint got a clue — except that I'm paying too much of both.





My best friend has a Masters in Economics and he's tried to explain the system to me, but he's just given up, having copped that a tin of soggy spinach wouldgrasp what a tax credit is before I would.





I guess my ignorance – I prefer the term 'mental block' but whatever –can be traced back to being a student for so long. When I started working, the concept of money was so foreign to me that I had to hire a diplomat to explain my first pay slip.





Until very recently, my world of finance was limited to student discounts, promotional nights and rummaging on that shelf in the supermarket for the knocked-down items that go out of date by the end of the day before they presumably implode like Tom Cruise's secret assignment briefs in Mission: Impossible.





Being a money moron just scares me sometimes, especially when I see people my age — and even younger — buying property or other sensible investments. I can't ever see a day when I'll be that savvy to channel my funds in the right way and put it to good use. I guess all I can do in the meantime is continue in my wilfull ignorance and, like SpikeMilligan, beg for the chance to prove that loads of money can't make me happy.

I Bebo, Therefore I Am (a tweenage girl)

Column from Day and Night magazine in today's Irish Independent

Being the easily peer-pressured, follow-the-herd merchant that I am, I caved into the online social networking craze from the get-go. To not do so would have signalled me out as 'different' and the Gods in heaven know I'll do anything to avoid that label.



I've been quite a consistent "social networker" since then, albeit not on MySpace (the officially 'cool' one), but rather on Bebo (the 'tweenage girl' one). "Social networker" is a phrase I find simply hilarious though. It's not so much a "social network" as a haven for the "excessively curious" ( i.e. nosy parkers) or "thorough researchers" (i.e. stalkers).





Bebo and the likes may have originally developed as a way to keep in touch with friends, but, lately, it's taken on a much wider remit. I had this confirmed recently while chatting someone up. He didn't ask for my number or even my MSN address.





Instead, he asked for a link to my Bebo page and he hasn't been the last person to ask something similar of me or others I know. What good is a number or simple text message anymore when you can gain far deeper insight into a potential love interest's life by way of their personal web page?





Bebo, for example, will have ample photos on display, lists of hobbies, evidence of who a person's friends and even their exes are, as well as a glimpse into the person's personality and sense of humour.





Why, it basically does all the hard work of a first date by getting all the rudimentary 'getting to know you' awkwardness out of the way, without actually having to go on a first date with someone. Talk about efficient time management.





So if you don't keep your personal web page up-to-scratch, you'd best get cracking. If things keep going this way, pretty soon nobody will form an opinion on you until they've auditioned you by way of your Bebo. And to think that so-called experts said the internet would destroy our ability to relate to other people on a human level. What a bunch of quacks, eh?