Collection
Joyce on Film
5 items
The IFI presents a selection of short films preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive in celebration of James Joyce – the man and his literature. Joyce, himself a regular and passionate cinema goer, managed the Volta, one of Ireland’s first dedicated cinemas, for a short time when it opened its doors in December 1909. His work has inspired feature-length films by directors such as Joseph Strick, Mary Ellen Bute, John Huston and Sean Walsh.
Here we look at short films in a programme that includes live-action, animation, documentary and newsreel, and attests to the various creative ways in which filmmakers respond to Joyce’s literary genius.
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10m 58s
This short documentary draws on the photographs of Robert French from the William Lawrence Collection held in the National Library. The photos illustrate the Dublin of 1904 which served as a backdrop to James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Directed in 1968 by renowned drama and documentary maker Kieran Hickey, the film traces Joyce’s childhood and adolescence, his meeting with Nora Barnacle on June 10th, 1904, and the highways and byways which Leopold Bloom wandered through on June 16th, 1904. The music in the film references some of Joyce’s favourite songs, many of which appear in Ulysses.
With kind permission from Barry Lyons & Patrick Duffner.
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5m 30s
Tim Booth’s playful animation is both a reflection on Joyce’s struggle with the writing of Ulysses (which he declares to be “a real bollix of a buk”), and a whistle-stop tour through the book itself. It offers a potted outline and uses hand-drawn animation to conjure the fevered imaginings of Leopold Bloom and the characters he encounters as he wanders through Dublin and its environs on June 16th, 1904.
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2m 30s
Writer / director, and now film critic, Donald Clarke audaciously parodies the personae and writing styles of not one but two Irish literary giants in this short drama which finds James Joyce (Martin Murphy) and Samuel Beckett (Arthur Riordan) attempting to tee off on a windswept green in Zurich in 1922.
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2m 00s
Sylvia Beach, the American who published Ulysses in 1922 under the imprint of her Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, opens the Sandycove James Joyce Museum on 16th June 1962.
D’oscail Sylvia Beach, an Meiriceánach a d’fhoilsigh Ulysses sa bhliain 1922 faoi inphrionta a siopa leabhar i bPáras, Shakespeare and Company, Músaem James Joyce i gCuas an Ghainimh ar an 16 Meitheamh 1962.
Produced by Gael Linn, Amharc Éireann (A View of Ireland) is Ireland’s first long-running indigenous newsreel series. It was distributed to cinemas throughout the country to promote the Irish language. Between 1956 and 1964, 267 editions of the newsreel were produced for cinema exhibition.
With kind permission of Gael Linn.
Léirithe ag Gael Linn, ba í Amharc Éireann (A View of Ireland) an chéad sraith dhúchasach de nuachtríleanna fadbhunaithe in Éirinn. Dháiltí iad ar phictiúrlanna ar fud na tíre leis an Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn. Idir 1956 agus 1964, léiríodh 267 eagrán de na nuachtríleanna le taispeáint sa phictiúrlann.
Le caoinchead ó Gael Linn.
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18m 32s
Directed by Mike O’Connor, and written by his brother, Joycean scholar Ulick O’Connor, this documentary portrays the Dublin in which Joyce lived and worked before his departure for Europe in 1904. Narrated by Micheál MacLiammóir, Joyce’s writing is woven through the scenes as significant locations from his life are revealed: the house in Brighton Square where he was born; Clongowes Wood College where he was educated; Sandymount Strand where he often wandered; derelict tenements once housing the brothels he frequented; and the Martello Tower where he visited with Oliver St John Gogarty.