Archive News
ThereÕs only one ‘True Grit’ for all those John Wayne fans
Date Published: {J}
Now that we have seen the gala night for the presentation of the Oscars – as someone who has had a lifelong interest in the
cinema, can I say that I was just a little puzzled by the fact that a remake of True Grit got up to 10 Oscar nominations, though eventually it did not feature among the major prizewinners.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on world cinema, or anything like it. Interest in the movies began as a kid in the fourpennies, like tens of thousands of others. But it did translate into a long stint as secretary of the Galway Film Society in the ’60s and ’70s, when a bunch of us did try to bring what might be termed some ‘world cinema’ to Galway.
In certain circles we were known as ‘the dirty film crowd’, but week-in, week-out, we collected reels of films from the trains and succeeded in screening Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Elia Kazan and Federico Fellini to Galway. In fact, the night we screened La Dolce Vita in Salthill in the Oslo, they were hanging out of the rafters such was the reputation of the film.
Unless I am mistaken, a goodly number of the clientele who were unaccustomed to subtitled films, or maybe expected some ‘hotter’ action, left during the break for the reel change . . . for, though we had two projectors, there had to be a break as we switched projectors.
However, back to True Grit. Now I know little or nothing about the newly-released remake – which was directed by no less than the formidable Joel and Ethan Coen – but I have to wonder out loud about the concept of making a new version of a very good film which has endured since 1969 when it was first made and starred John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby.
I have to admit something of a soft spot for John Wayne. That probably comes from the days in the fourpennies when Wayne fought his way across every island in the Pacific as a marine in all those war films. Wayne, Alan Ladd, Audie Murphy, William Holden were the staple diet of the cinemagoers of my generation . . . and it was only later that we learned not to ‘boo’ when Jane Russell hove into view.
Now you will notice that I did not call the original True Grit a classic. I would rather classify it as a definitive Western. However, the idea of a remake of ‘a very good film’ all sounds a bit like inviting someone along to have another attempt at painting the Mona Lisa.
Or, you might get someone in to make you a violin in the style of Stradivarius. Both propositions sound a little silly, now don’t they . . . in other words, how do you improve something that is widely regarded as very fine indeed?
Sounds like you might end up with an end product akin to that mentioned in one of Tommy Cooper’s joke. Fans of the comic will remember his story about looking at The Antiques Roadshow and then heading up into his attic in an attempt to rummage out something of value. He emerged with a violin and a painting!
Cooper said that when he took them to his local antique dealer he was told that what he had found were a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt . . . but, unfortunately, Stradivarius was a hopeless painter and Rembrandt made crap violins!
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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