In John Ford, the most brilliant book of film criticism I’ve read, Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington thus identify the unifying theme of The Rising of the Moon, shot “entirely in natural settings” in Ireland, the land of John Ford’s ancestors: “the dwindling away of Irish communal traditions in the face of modern social pressures.” (The authors note that Ford’s 1958 The Last Hurrah develops the same theme on the other side of the Atlantic.) The film opens with a sweeping shot of the Irish coast and ends with the most heartrending shot ever devised by an American: in long-shot at night at the time of “the troubles,” Sean Curran, having escaped a British hanging, leaves by moonlit boat, his standing silhouette facing Ireland rather than where the boat is headed, his soul forever to be haunted by the separation. Must I mention that Ford’s first name is kin to Curran’s?
The film consists of three parts. The first, “The Majesty of the Law,” derives from Frank O’Connor’s story. A police inspector (Cyril Cusack, at 46 achingly young and, of course, wonderful) arrests a close friend, allowing the old, poor, arthritic man the face-saving grace of reporting on his own for imprisonment. Voiceover: “Dan O’Flaherty took leave of his kinsmen and neighbors.” (Inspector Michael Dillon, earlier: “It isn’t the castle that makes the king.”) Dan’s nemesis offers to pay the fine for Dan’s moonshining, but Dan rejects this on a number of grounds, including his refusal to accept as criminal what he has long been doing and, beneath his bombast, a desire to spare his would-be benefactor the cost. In “1921,” the final part of The Rising of the Moon, a street officer permits Sean Curran’s escape from the hands of the law despite the ₤500 reward being offered for his capture because his wife has stirred up in his heart a bit of revolutionary patriotism from their courting days long ago. McBride and Wilmington thus note that the film comes full circle; Ford is implying that Dillon should never have arrested Dan. As Sergeant Michael O’Hara, Denis O’Dea, who played the young street singer twenty-one years earlier in Ford’s The Informer, gives the film’s most beautiful performance. “1921” is based on Lady Gregory’s play The Rising of the Moon.
The middle part is as intricately comical as anything by Jacques Tati. “A Minute’s Wait” is so titled because a train’s departure from a depot is over and over again put on-hold for “a minute” that actually lasts a lot longer and into which momentous doings are crammed, including the forging of one marriage proposal and the cancellation by family of another romantic union. Meanwhile, an English couple are not amused by such disorganization, even anarchy; assured they have enough time for tea, they discover that the train has pulled out without them! The shots of a mob either boarding or exiting the train for “a minute’s wait” are gorgeously hectic, and the train’s eventual departure haunts. McBride and Wilmington identify the train as Ireland itself.
The cast is drawn from the Abbey Theatre Company; the black-and-white cinematography is by Robert Krasker; the music is full of joy and sorrow.
B(U)Y THE BOOK
MY BOOK, A Short Chronology of World Cinema, IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM THE SANDS FILMS CINEMA CLUB IN LONDON. USING EITHER OF THE LINKS BELOW, ACCESS THE ADVERTISEMENT FOR THIS BOOK, FROM WHICH YOU CAN ORDER ONE OR MORE COPIES OF IT. THANKS.
Dennis Grunes 