Why no movies about 1916?

Adamantium · 20-04-2015 07:44PM

I want to make an alternate history where the Nazi's invade and the prominent leaders of the time are lined up outside the GPO and shot with potato guns. The horrors.

Rated R for Retarded.

Insect Overlord · 20-04-2015 08:10PM

Adamantium wrote: »

I want to make an alternate history where the Nazi's invade and the prominent leaders of the time are lined up outside the GPO and shot with potato guns.

Iron Sky has already been done.

MRnotlob606 · 20-04-2015 08:13PM

I think Quentin Tarantino should make one. Imagine that, A mexican stand off in the GPO between Dev, Collins and Llyod George.

JohnFalstaff · 20-04-2015 08:15PM

An File wrote: »

TG4 did a fantastic series about the men behind the rising.

1916 - Seachtar na Cásca, and the sequel 1916 - Seachtar Dearmadta.

Well worth watching, and plenty of it is done in English too.

This was a great series, one of the best things that TG4 have ever done. The dramatised scenes are excellent.

The Seachtar na Cásca series is the closest thing we'll get to a movie of the Rising before the centenary.

I managed to pick up a copy of the series on DVD in Eason's a year or two ago but some of the episodes are available online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIHLxYP0rmw

MarkAnthony · 20-04-2015 08:16PM

I was born and brought up in the SE of England, at a time when a strange man with a beard wasn't allowed to speak on the TV and the 'Irish situation' wasn't allowed to be discussed by teachers. (This predated the internet).

And even I know there's at least 2 OP.

KingBrian2 · 20-04-2015 08:47PM

Strider wrote: »

What?

My thought exactly.

DavidRamsay99 · 20-04-2015 09:08PM

There was a 4 part BBC TV series back in 2001 called Rebel Heart which covered the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War.

Mills and Boon stuff for the most part but good battle sequences all the same.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249312/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

George White · 21-04-2015 07:24AM

Didn't the BBC Life and Times of David Lloyd George series in the 80s with Philip Madoc cover the Rising?
I remember it did have the Civil War in it.

OU812 · 21-04-2015 09:21AM

There's also this:

Historical inaccuracies aside (raising the tricolour over the GPO etc), Indiana Jones fighting in the 1916 rising? I'll have some of that!

The Corinthian · 21-04-2015 09:23AM

veryangryman wrote: »

Is it the sensitivity etc...didnt stop them with Wind That Shakes Barley. Any theories?

Probably because the whole thing, apart from the rather romantic last stand in the GPO, was an embarrassing clusterfück.

The British forces were largely caught with their pants down, yet the rebel forces failed to take (a lightly guarded) Dublin castle, either Amiens Street (Connolly) or Kingsbridge (Heuston) stations or either Dublin or Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) ports. Additionally, it had little support even in Dublin (let alone the rest of the country) and was treated with scorn by much of the population, as was later depicted in Seán O'Casey's "the Plough and the Stars".

It's only success can be attributed to British mishandling of the aftermath, that alienated public opinion.

The rising itself was a military disaster, who's only redeeming feature was ultimately the final battle at the GPO, which makes for a good scene in a movie (such as Michael Collins), but is insufficient for a whole movie. Were one to do a movie about the actual, historical rising, it would likely upset a lot of people who would rather not know what an unpopular disaster it really was.

DavidRamsay99 · 21-04-2015 10:01AM

OU812 wrote: »

There's also this:

Historical inaccuracies aside (raising the tricolour over the GPO etc), Indiana Jones fighting in the 1916 rising? I'll have some of that!

Indiana Jones didn't fight in the Rising.
He dated Sean Leamas' sister who thought he was an American millionaire until Lemass caught him working in a pub so he and his Belgian friend Remy he met in Mexico could sail on to England to join the Belgian Army.
Jones, Remy, Lemass's sister and the playwright Sean O'Casey were trapped in a Dublin pub for Easter Week.

Zamboni · 21-04-2015 10:05AM

Not a movie but great interviews in the 70's with surviving participants of the rising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4JvXQqw4NY

whisky_galore · 21-04-2015 10:06AM

degrassinoel wrote: »

Insurrection eight part series depicting the rising, made in 1966 - havent had the pleasure of seeing it but i've heard it was excellent, would be surprised if RTE didnt show it next year at some point before easter.

RTE has been pussyfooting around showing this for years, now finally they're looking for permission from the actors and relatives of desceased actors for permission to screen it again.

Lt J.R. Bell · 21-04-2015 11:39AM

veryangryman wrote: »

Just wondering given

a) The centenary
b) How many movies are out commemorating practicallly anything these days

Why they arent doing anything movie-wise on the Rising. Seems like a great topic to cover.

Is it the sensitivity etc...didnt stop them with Wind That Shakes Barley. Any theories?

There have been a number of decent documentaries on the period done by TnaG 4

While it was politically a success in the long term, it achieved it's aim (ie reawakening Republician attitudes) it was hardly a glaring success militarily. No one "celebrates" 1798 either

Any attempt to do a film would be utterly ****e. Unionists, being Unionists will feel insulted and complain, and too many Gob****es like Myers and Former Republican Fan boy, Eoghan Harris, and amateur no it amateur know it all Fintin Otoole would be given more oxygen

There was no 1916 scene in Wind that Shakes the Barely

Lt J.R. Bell · 21-04-2015 11:43AM

LordSutch wrote: »

Maybe its because in the grand scheme of things, the rising was a very small event which took place during a very turbulent war in Europe where millions of men died fighting, not least the fifty thousand Irish men who died on the continent between 1914-1918. The Easter Rising itself was in reality a very small blip on the landscape (of world affairs at that time), hence there are much bigger stories to tell about the period.

Two Big films about the rising; The wind that shakes the barley & Michael Collins.

No scene froM 1916 Rising in WTSTB

syklops · 21-04-2015 11:49AM

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Wouldn't have a good enough ending for the cinema,unless they make an alternate ending where the g.p.o is secretly an alien spaceship and they CGI it lifting off towards the end of the fighting,the leaders of the rising are now on a planet with Elvis and 2pac

That wouldnt make any sense. If the GPO lifted off, then why is it still standing? Or you mean the GPO sitting there is a fake?

Lt J.R. Bell · 21-04-2015 11:55AM

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

I think Quentin Tarantino should make one. Imagine that, A mexican stand off in the GPO between Dev, Collins and Llyod George.

Eh, neither Dev or Collins were big players in 1916. Dev was a Commandant on Mount Street but word is that he had a "panic attack", still it was the most successful division. Collins was Plunketts assistant. Lloyd George was banging someones wife back in London, the cad

Tordelback · 21-04-2015 12:10PM

The answer to 'why no big movie' is pretty obvious: the vital US market would never stomach an even vaguely accurate movie about the Rising - even the fantasy-tinted version of the longer story in Michael Collins with Julia Roberts singing her brogue out and Alan Rickman sobbing behind the turf stack didn't make much of dent ($27M Worldwide on a $28M budget is a bloody disaster).

What makes 1916 so interesting is the complexity of those involved, their diverse motivations (would anyone have believed Connolly and Pearse would fight and die on the same side... really?), the (wonderfully and typically Irish) reaction of the populace, the moral questions of treason in wartime and undemocratic uprising, the vastly greater numbers of Irishmen that fought and died in WWI, the disastrous misjudgements by first the Volunteers and then the British... and of course how all that shaped everything that followed, for good or ill.

What it definitely is not, and shouldn't be, is an easily marketed story of heroism. It's a defining political event, it's got 'splosions and girls with guns, it deftly catches the romance of Cuchulainn's death, but a popular entertainment for a wider audience? Well, maybe, but it'd be the kind of gamble studios don't often take.

lertsnim · 21-04-2015 12:11PM

degrassinoel wrote: »

Michael Collins by Neil Jordan

Awful ****e dressed up for Hollywood

DavidRamsay99 · 21-04-2015 01:37PM

Tordelback wrote: »

The answer to 'why no big movie' is pretty obvious: the vital US market would never stomach an even vaguely accurate movie about the Rising - even the fantasy-tinted version of the longer story in Michael Collins with Julia Roberts singing her brogue out and Alan Rickman sobbing behind the turf stack didn't make much of dent ($27M Worldwide on a $28M budget is a bloody disaster).

What makes 1916 so interesting is the complexity of those involved, their diverse motivations (would anyone have believed Connolly and Pearse would fight and die on the same side... really?), the (wonderfully and typically Irish) reaction of the populace, the moral questions of treason in wartime and undemocratic uprising, the vastly greater numbers of Irishmen that fought and died in WWI, the disastrous misjudgements by first the Volunteers and then the British... and of course how all that shaped everything that followed, for good or ill.

What it definitely is not, and shouldn't be, is an easily marketed story of heroism. It's a defining political event, it's got 'splosions and girls with guns, it deftly catches the romance of Cuchulainn's death, but a popular entertainment for a wider audience? Well, maybe, but it'd be the kind of gamble studios don't often take.

A skillful filmmaker should be able to pull all those strands together into an fatefully accurate but exciting dramatic historical action adventure movie.

The book The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield written in the 1960s is one of the definitive accounts of the events of Easter 1916 with a vivid breathless minute by minute narrative that is readily adaptable to the big screen.

Over the past 15 years or so movies like The Queen, Thirteen Days, Argo, Valkyrie, Lincoln, Black Hawk Down, Downfall etc have been able to bring complex historical events to life.

Neil Jordan's inferior Michael Collins which flopped internationally has sadly meant Hollywood is hesitant to touch the subject of Irish republicanism.

Ideally I would cast Jamie Dornan as Patrick Pearse so women would watch it, Gabriel Byrne as Tom Clarke and Russell Crowe as James Connolly.

Pearse would have to have a love interest so Jessica Chastain or Bryce Dallas Howard could play his betrothed who is said to have drowned.

The film would need an icy British villain so General Lowe could be played by Jeremy Irons and the buffoonish General Maxwell could be played by Rowan Atkinson.

The Corinthian · 21-04-2015 02:05PM

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

A skillful filmmaker should be able to pull all those strands together into an fatefully accurate but exciting dramatic historical action adventure movie.

Pick only one.

Lt J.R. Bell · 21-04-2015 02:12PM

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

A skillful filmmaker should be able to pull all those strands together into an fatefully accurate but exciting dramatic historical action adventure movie.

The book The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield written in the 1960s is one of the definitive accounts of the events of Easter 1916 with a vivid breathless minute by minute narrative that is readily adaptable to the big screen.

Over the past 15 years or so movies like The Queen, Thirteen Days, Argo, Valkyrie, Lincoln, Black Hawk Down, Downfall etc have been able to bring complex historical events to life.

Neil Jordan's inferior Michael Collins which flopped internationally has sadly meant Hollywood is hesitant to touch the subject of Irish republicanism.

Ideally I would cast Jamie Dornan as Patrick Pearse so women would watch it, Gabriel Byrne as Tom Clarke and Russell Crowe as James Connolly.

Pearse would have to have a love interest so Jessica Chastain or Bryce Dallas Howard could play his betrothed who is said to have drowned.

The film would need an icy British villain so General Lowe could be played by Jeremy Irons and the buffoonish General Maxwell could be played by Rowan Atkinson.

Tim Roth has got to be one of the baddies. Let Tim Spall do his Churchill routine

Rowan Atkinson, inspired casting. Would look dashing in the uniform and tache

Not sure about the cast selections for Connolly and Clarke. Shame Olly Reed is dead

The Corinthian · 21-04-2015 02:30PM

Lt J.R. Bell wrote: »

Rowan Atkinson, inspired casting. Would look dashing in the uniform and tache

I wonder where that inspiration came from...

walkingshadow · 21-04-2015 03:39PM

The only thing that would make me watch a movie about 1916 is if they put orcs or transformers into it.

DavidRamsay99 · 21-04-2015 04:18PM

Lt J.R. Bell wrote: »

Tim Roth has got to be one of the baddies. Let Tim Spall do his Churchill routine

Rowan Atkinson, inspired casting. Would look dashing in the uniform and tache

Not sure about the cast selections for Connolly and Clarke. Shame Olly Reed is dead

Tim Roth might be a good choice because he can portray cold bloodedness very well however he is a little on the short side

What on earth does Churchill have to do with 1916? At the time he was a Lt. Colonel commanding Scottish troops in France after he had resigned from the Admiralty after the Gallipoli disaster.

Rowan Atkinson looks rather like Maxwell in a picture that shows the general wearing his cap and tunic with binoculars around his neck.

Connolly was a rather short plump middle aged man with ruddy cheeks. Put a bushy mustache on Russell Crowe and he would be perfect. I presume he can do a Scots accent so he would be a good fit.

Gabriel Byrne has that old wizen look and has sticky out ears and with a pair of owl like glasses and a bushy mustache on him and he's a ringer for Thomas Clarke.

Lt J.R. Bell · 21-04-2015 04:31PM

DavidRamsay99 wrote: »

Tim Roth might be a good choice because he can portray cold bloodedness very well however he is a little on the short side

What on earth does Churchill have to do with 1916? At the time he was a Lt. Colonel commanding Scottish troops in France after he had resigned from the Admiralty after the Gallipoli disaster.

Rowan Atkinson looks rather like Maxwell in a picture that shows the general wearing his cap and tunic with binoculars around his neck.

Connolly was a rather short plump middle aged man with ruddy cheeks. Put a bushy mustache on Russell Crowe and he would be perfect. I presume he can do a Scots accent so he would be a good fit.

Gabriel Byrne has that old wizen look and has sticky out ears and with a pair of owl like glasses and a bushy mustache on him and he's a ringer for Thomas Clarke.

Churchill could do a cameo in the War trenches of France, cursing the Irish while he learns of revolution in Dublin. His father Randolph spent alot of his political career and capital on fighting Home Rule and being friends with Unionists. Churchill himself had a better understanding of Ireland than most in Westminster. The clip could cover the views of "Irish men" hearing the news from afar. Reaction in India and Connacht mutiny would be clever - don't hate me because I am a genius!!! You got owned and you know you did

Tim Roth being short? Never stopped Tom Cruise. Doubt Collins was a as tall as Liam Nelson

Accents and Crowe do not fit. Perhaps ask George Galloway to play Connolly

Byrne couldn't pull that Northern accent for Clark.

Duggy747 · 21-04-2015 05:15PM

1916 2:
Ressurection

This time it's personal!

DavidRamsay99 · 21-04-2015 05:38PM

There would have to be comic relief from the earnest heroism.
According to Ernie O'Malley the denizens of the slums wearing rings on every finger with just their joints showing, wearing silk dresses and furs were lying on the pavements drunk on wine and spirits after looting the shops of Sackville Street while urchins with stolen cap guns fought imitation street battles and men in football jerseys and top hats played golf.
Then the lancers arrived and charged the GPO with sabres drawn only to be shot out of the saddles by a blaze of shotguns and Martini Henrys and Howth Mausers before street kids raided their bodies for revolvers and carbines that were handed over the rebels. One of the rebels firing at the lancers accidentally shot another rebel dead across the street.
The machine gun shooting up St. Stephen's Green from the Shelbourne Hotel paused so the groundskeeper could feed the ducks.
A British soldier captured by the gun totting middle class ladies from Countess Markiewicz's command while talking a stroll with his girl was held in the summer house where he was fed tea and cakes and sandwiches and was almost shot when the Countess caught him and one of the rebel girls in a passionate embrace.
When the British closed on Sackville Street from the direction of D'Olier Street and Westmoreland Street, the British Army and rebels traded bullets across Sackville Bridge and the roof tops across the river. In the middle of this pitched battle drunken men staggered home from the pubs through a hail of lead.

KingBrian2 · 21-04-2015 10:09PM

The Corinthian wrote: »

Probably because the whole thing, apart from the rather romantic last stand in the GPO, was an embarrassing clusterfück.

The British forces were largely caught with their pants down, yet the rebel forces failed to take (a lightly guarded) Dublin castle, either Amiens Street (Connolly) or Kingsbridge (Heuston) stations or either Dublin or Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) ports. Additionally, it had little support even in Dublin (let alone the rest of the country) and was treated with scorn by much of the population, as was later depicted in Seán O'Casey's "the Plough and the Stars".

It's only success can be attributed to British mishandling of the aftermath, that alienated public opinion.

The rising itself was a military disaster, who's only redeeming feature was ultimately the final battle at the GPO, which makes for a good scene in a movie (such as Michael Collins), but is insufficient for a whole movie. Were one to do a movie about the actual, historical rising, it would likely upset a lot of people who would rather not know what an unpopular disaster it really was.

My god people, nobody even mentions Silken Thomas who also organised a rebellion in the 1530's. A major historical figure behind a key event in the city of Dublin's life story.

c_man · 21-04-2015 10:42PM

"It would make a sh!te movie cos I don't agree with their politics..."
"People would be upset that it was actually a military screw-up," classic and utterly predictable boards. Meanwhile for the rest of us who have knowledge of the event and a bit of imagination, there are a few shows/films definitely worth checking out. As said TG4 did a very good series. I seem to recall some RTE mini-drama taking in 1916 up to the Civil War? It was made in the past ten years... any ideas?

Why no movies about 1916?

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