Michael Collins always on the television

'Michael Collins' is a pretty bad picture, with some dubious "history" and piss poor acting, but I thought the sets were very good in general. In fact I remember cycling through Dublin one Sunday afternoon and onto the set. There were rubber cobblestones laid on the roads and they were as convincing as anything. The only way you would have know they were rubber is if you touched them.

Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.

biko wrote: »

Without Michael Collins we'd all be speaking British still.

Al'right mate.

Nodin wrote: »

Why, might I ask?

I think he is over rated. It was his actions signing a treaty that led to a civil war, the division of the island into two separate states which led to thousands of lives being lost.

Plus I expect he got shot in the film and died and it is all romanticised.

For me Michael Collins is a film made for an American audience. To watch it in that context, then yes, it's a rip roaring yarn through a turbulent time in Irish history and a quality film.

The score is wonderful and the cinematography is fantastic, take a bow Chris Menges.

It was for me a missed opportunity. It could have had the pathos of a Godfather movie (a slow burning character driven period piece), where the talented guerilla fighter turns politcian and is assassinated by his former brothers in arms, died before his time etc. The film lacks that kind of pathos.

Liam Neeson and Julia Roberts are miscast in this and Neeson's overacting is particularly grating. Brendan Gleeson nailed playing Collins in RTE's 'The Treaty', he portrayed him as a charming and charismatic bully, which he probably would have been but that doesn't play well for the "Tragic Hero" trope the movie portrays him as. An unknown would have been better but again Neeson was the household name that would bring in the big bucks. Some of the attempted humour wouldn't feel out of place in Mrs Brown's Boys, "All I'm missing is the high heels!" but again that is to appeal to a broader audience.

If anyone is looking at this film from an academic perspective (or any historical film), then they will be inevitably disappointed but it certainly has it's merits.

It's like our country's Forrest Gump. When you're flicking through the channels and you land on it, then you always end up watching it.

Gatling wrote: »

What Dev has no blame

Yes for giving Michael Collins too much freedom and allowing him sign away 6 counties, divide a country and eventually thousands of deaths.
Michael Collins did a worse job than signing up to a troika bailout.
Dev shouldn't have allowed such an amateur have so much power.

Faith+1 wrote: »

Does anyone remember going to the Grangegorman to see the GPO set? Fecking brilliant so it was!

I might have been in the film.

I was an extra for a day - one of a few thousand running down a street cheering in some scene. It was just background to whatever was going on in the foreground. We could see Julia Roberts a good way off in the distance.

They had asked people to dress properly, and had loads and loads of old caps and scarves to help people look the part. Still,they kept having to re-shoot it again an again as there was some idiot with sunglasses on, or somebody with a football shirt, or stuff like that. They kept calling out the problems with a loudspeaker, hopefully to shame whatever clown was doing it into copping on.

Anyway we ran up and down a load of times, and eventually I got sick of it and left. They were still filming the same scene when I left.

I watched the movie and tried to identify myself in it, but it was all too far in the background and unclear.

RobertKK wrote: »

Yes for giving Michael Collins too much freedom and allowing him sign away 6 counties, divide a country and eventually thousands of deaths.
Michael Collins did a worse job than signing up to a troika bailout.
Dev shouldn't have allowed such an amateur have so much power.

Read some history will you? or are you being deliberately revisionist.

The Govt. of Ireland Act 1920 is what effectively gave the Unionists in the North the right to secede from the Irish Free State. This was signed into Law 2 years before the Treaty was signed.

Collins did not start the civil war. The General Election of 1922 was won by Pro Treaty SF, Anti Treaty IRA units seized barracks and installations all over the country and wanted to resume the war against the british, reluctantly Collins had to use force to supress them before the british did.

Bambi wrote: »

that's for nicking cathal brughas burd ya shneaky cork bollix!

Cathal Brugha's bird???

I cant believe people still watch rte.

diomed wrote: »

Some scenes were in streets near the Catholic church in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
I don't know why people get all excited about Collins. All I know about him was he stood up and got shot.

Well if you know so little about him then you wouldn't know why people get excited about him -- would you?:P

Without him there would be no one to pick up the slack from De Valera's shambling mistakes and we would've lost the War of Independence. His specialty was Military Intelligence and he gave MI6 a run for their money. He also secured enough loans internationally to run an internationally unrecognised government.

He's also regarded as the Founding Father of Modern 20th century Guerilla Warfare -- at least according to History.net. While not everyone used these tactics for the betterment of mankind that still makes him very influential globally. Lenin and Mao are the most famous posthumous students of Collins -- which would probably make him turn in his grave.

Even Churchill respected him -- something he didn't have for the rest of the first Dail.