Film 4 and the Commitments

iremex

dont know if anyone caught it last night on film 4 but the movie was introduced to us by the female voice over saying

"and staying with the classic english movies at 9pm, the commitments"

how can they say that? irish actors, irish director, irish novel, filmed in ireland.

Karl Hungus

iremex wrote:

how can they say that? irish actors, irish director, irish novel, filmed in ireland.

Because some English people still love to claim Ireland as theirs it seems.

I remember a while back, some TV show presented all these great new "English" stars who were making it big in Hollywood, such as Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell. :rolleyes:

quazzy

Yeah, does anyone remember this little interview with Sam Jackson.

From: http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/14/story482261422.asp


Meanwhile, Samuel L Jackson was having difficulty with the news that his co-star in Swat, Colin Farrell, was in fact British. ITV interviewer KateThornton asked Jackson just how he was getting on with "our" Colin.

Jackson, not one to mince his words, wasted no time in setting the record straight.

The interview played out like this:

Thornton: "What was it like working with Colin? 'Cos he is just so hot in the UK right now..."

Jackson: "He's pretty hot in the US, too!"

Thornton: "Yeah, but he is one of our own."

Jackson: "Isn't he from Ireland?"

Thornton: "Yeah, but we can claim him, 'cos Ireland is beside us."

Jackson: "You see, that's your problem right there. You British keep claiming people that don't belong to you. We had that problem here in America too. It was called slavery."


Legend

ixoy

I think it's only fair that we look to Samuel L. Jackson for wisdom at this point when being interviewed on a UK talk show:

KATE THORNTON: Now lets talk about Colin because in the UK he’s become the man of the moment.

SAMUEL L.JACKSON: Really? Only in the UK?

KT: Well everywhere but we kind of claim him as our own because he’s from Ireland.

SLJ: You can’t claim him because he’s from Ireland.

KT: Well we do because it’s close by. (laughter)

SLJ: Ok. That’s the source of all the conflict over there. You people always claiming the Irish as yours. We got a little problem just like that here called slavery but that’s ok we don’t need to talk about that so lets go. (more laughter)

KT: Well Colin is a very well paid slave.

SLJ: Ok good.

KT: As are you.

SLJ: Yeah all right.

KT: What did you know about him before you came to work with him on this project?

SLJ: I knew he was a hot, young, Irish actor who was good looking and I talked to a couple of people about him. I talked to Bruce about him and I talked to some script supervisors that had worked with him on a couple of things and they all loved him.

KT: So you checked him out?

SLJ: Yeah.

Vokes

Wow, snap!

Always enjoyed that interview

mike65

When did Alan Parker become Irish? Or the company that made it?

Mike.

humanji

mike65 wrote:

When did Alan Parker become Irish? Or the company that made it?

Mike.

Well it's written by an Irishman, set in Ireland, filmed in Ireland and stars Irish people. That makes it more Irish than simply having an English director.

mike65

The screenplay was by Dick Clement (hair-splitting point!), the 3 production companies (ie the money men) were US and UK.

Mike.

humanji

mike65 wrote:

The screenplay was by Dick Clement (hair-splitting point!), the 3 production companies (ie the money men) were US and UK.

Mike.

Two of the three screenwriters were English, the third was Roddy Doyle. And the main money came from the US (but no ones going to argue it's an American film! ).

Actually, I didn't realise that the two English writers, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, had such a list of writing credits. It's fairly impressive, including Porridge and Never Say Never Again (ok, it was rubbish, but it's still James Bond!)

lodgepole

I would always call it an Irish film, but it's an excellent demonstration of Alan Parker's (English) talents. Film4 should have added a few details to the blurb, since it's supposed to be a serious film channel.

johnny_ultimate

Lodgepole wrote:

I would always call it an Irish film, but it's an excellent demonstration of Alan Parker's (English) talents. Film4 should have added a few details to the blurb, since it's supposed to be a serious film channel.

FilmFour has gone down hill since it switched to advertising. Used to be the most serious channel around - you'd find a good film on there a few times a week, and you have to respect any channel that has a month long Studio Ghibli season.

But these days it just seems to be showing the same fairly mainstream films every night, and repeating them three or four nights later. Tis a shame really. It still does get the odd good film, but honsetly the channel has taken a bit of a nosedive.