The spirit of Chekhov hovers over the Irish countryside in The Last September. Director Deborah Warner and screenwriter John Banville bring a powerfully elliptical sense of inevitable loss to this film about the waning days of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Based on the 1929 novel by Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September is set on a country estate in Cork in 1920 … [Read more...] about The Last September: The Rules of Ascendancy
Issues
The Ice Dancer
Sarah Hughes watches herself without a trace of embarrassment. It's hard to reconcile the bubbly 14-year-old sitting in front of the television with the heart-stopping vision of grace and style who glides effortlessly across the ice in the video clip we're watching. The footage was captured at the recent Keri Lotion USA vs. The World Figure Skating Challenge, and the … [Read more...] about The Ice Dancer
Ireland’s Forgotten Patriot
In the suburb of Rathfarnham an island of serenity exists amid the frantic bustle of 21st-century Dublin. With rolling lawns and woodlands embracing a handsome classical house, Saint Enda's School harks back to a gentler time. In a place of honour facing the house is a large bronze bust of the school's founder, Pádraig Pearse, who was more famously both the inspiration and the … [Read more...] about Ireland’s Forgotten Patriot
Fiona Shaw: A Modern Classic
She says she's jetlagged, that her head feels as if an arrow is piercing both temples, but Fiona Shaw is the picture of vitality. She strides into the lobby of the Lombardy Hotel in New York City, her long brown coat swinging behind her. The hair that often appears close cropped in publicity photos is a little longer now, sweeping back from her face in soft brown waves. She's … [Read more...] about Fiona Shaw: A Modern Classic
Then The Walls Came Down – A Prison Journal
Danny Morrison is listening to a Traveling Wilburys' tune and remembering a time in bed with his girlfriend Leslie in 1988. The song goes: And the walls came down. All the way to hell. Never saw them when they're standing. Never saw them when they fell. He suddenly sits upright. It is five in the morning, in October 1990, and he is alone in the Crumlin Road Jail, … [Read more...] about Then The Walls Came Down – A Prison Journal