Michael Collins (1996), Neil Jordan’s epic motion picture about the Irish revolutionary leader, was one of the most expensive movies made in Ireland, costing Warner Brothers. and the Irish National Film Board more than $25 million (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 122).Indeed, Michael Collins sits squarely at the intersection of Hollywood convention and the conventions of European cinema and the idea of epic national cinema.
Filmed at a time when there seemed to be the first real, lasting cease-fire in Northern Ireland, a sudden outbreak of violence threatened the planned release and distribution of the film. Because of that pressure and because of some disappointing audience testing in America, Neil Jordan agreed to re-shoot some scenes and change the opening and closing of the film to fit a more traditional “Hollywood” understanding of filmic communication.
The film’s opening scene, which was added at the request of Warner Brothers, features a very traditional narration. Kitty Kiernan, Collins’ love interest, is lying on a bed in the background, while another character, Joe O’Reilly seems to speak directly to the audience.
The point of this pseudo-narration is to give away the ending. Most of the international audience had no idea who Michael Collins was, apart from the film advertisements they saw, and so it was important to set their expectations at the beginning of the film: Michael Collins is going to die.
However, even as Neil Jordan made concessions to Hollywood, he maintained a strong sense of his European roots as well. The actual scene of Michael Collins’ death is very understated, which contrasts with the usual depiction of the death of a protagonist/hero in mainstream Hollywood fare.
The camera stays in a long shot, and refuses any indulgence such as slow-motion or close-up. Indeed, it could have been easy to depict Collins dying in the midst of action, defending his fellow men, or engaged in some kind of gallantry (since he died in the midst of the Irish Civil War). But, staying true to his editorial intent, Jordan chose to show Collins as the target of an ambush while his convoy was making its way from one town to another: another needless victim of war. His death seems like a waste rather than an act of martyrdom.
Joe O’Reilly addresses the audience directly, saying: “You’ve got to think of him. The way he was…He was what the times demanded. And life without him seems impossible. But he’s dead. And life is possible. He made it possible”. (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 124).
The point of this pseudo-narration is to give away the ending. Most of the international audience had no idea who Michael Collins was, apart from the film advertisements they saw, and so it was important to set their expectations at the beginning of the film: Michael Collins is going to die.
Indeed, one other change that Neil Jordan made was to the ending of the film.
The film returns to Joe O’Reilly’s narration to Kitty Kiernan, and we hear non-diagetic music, in the form of Sinead O’Connor’s rendition of “She Moved Through the Fair” during a montage of Kitty’s wedding preparations intercut with scenes of Collins’ assassination. Another addition that Warner Brothers suggested was a scene in which Kitty hears the news of Collins’ death (as she is shopping for a wedding gown). In the original version, according to Jordan, the film cut from his death scene “to a bridal wreath being placed around her head in the wedding shop. And in the great European tradition, emotion is implied rather than presented.” (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 124).
According to Bordwell (1990: 160), at the end of a classical Hollywood film, “the narration may again acknowledge its awareness of the audience (nondiegetic music reappears, characters look to the camera or close a door in our face), its omniscience (e.g. the camera retreats to a long shot) and its communicativeness (now we know all)”. Closely following this tradition, Michael Collins returns to overt narration towards the end of the film. (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 125).
The film returns to Joe O’Reilly’s narration to Kitty Kiernan, and we hear non-diagetic music, in the form of Sinead O’Connor’s rendition of “She Moved Through the Fair” during a montage of Kitty’s wedding preparations intercut with scenes of Collins’ assassination. Another addition that Warner Brothers suggested was a scene in which Kitty hears the news of Collins’ death (as she is shopping for a wedding gown). In the original version, according to Jordan, the film cut from his death scene “to a bridal wreath being placed around her head in the wedding shop. And in the great European tradition, emotion is implied rather than presented.” (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 124).
However, even as Neil Jordan made concessions to Hollywood, he maintained a strong sense of his European roots as well. The actual scene of Michael Collins’ death is very understated, which contrasts with the usual depiction of the death of a protagonist/hero in mainstream Hollywood fare.
Collins’s death is not mythologised but instead seems futile. Unlike the death of the hero in so many Hollywood films, Collins’s screen death is essentially undramatic and devoid of profound meaning. (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 125).
The camera stays in a long shot, and refuses any indulgence such as slow-motion or close-up. Indeed, it could have been easy to depict Collins dying in the midst of action, defending his fellow men, or engaged in some kind of gallantry (since he died in the midst of the Irish Civil War). But, staying true to his editorial intent, Jordan chose to show Collins as the target of an ambush while his convoy was making its way from one town to another: another needless victim of war. His death seems like a waste rather than an act of martyrdom.
It is in this way that Neil Jordan kept a healthy tension between Hollywood and Ireland, big-budget and art-house, melodrama and understatement, and in the process, helped the people of Ireland consider more fully the question, “where are we coming from and where are we going?” (Merivirta-Chakrabarti, p 123).
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Works Cited:
Merivirta-Chakrabarti, Raita. “Between Irish National Cinema and Hollywood: Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins” in Estudios Irlandeses, Number 2, 2007, pp. 121-127
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