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Tuesday, Feb 7th 2012


Cinema on Irish Left Review

Films of the Year 2011

Films of the Year Archive
After a disappointing year in 2010, this year was considerably better at the movies. There were a number of big disappointments (I’m thinking mainly of Terrence Malick, Lynne Ramsay, Gus Van Sant, Steve McQueen and the Coen brothers) and some recently flourishing national cinemas (Taiwan and Germany in particular) were absent [...]

Genoa 2001, the Death of Carlo Giuliani and the Making of Berlusconi’s Mousetrap

Here’s something which Eamonn Crudden passed on to me today to mark the anniversary of the death 10 years ago of Carlo Giuliani, a young anarchist who was shot dead by Italian Police in Genoa during the Anti-Globalisation protests against the G8 meeting in the city.
Below is his 2002 documentary Berlusconi’s Mousetrap, and a 12,000 [...]

Made in Dagenham

Why everyone from your mother to your local fascist will love it.
Eagerly marketed as a ‘feel-good film’, Made in Dagenham has ditched the dour kitchen sink realism you might expect, for a triumphant, heart-on-sleeve dramatisation of a strike that changed British history and the lives of British workingwomen. In 1968, 187 sewing machinists for the [...]

Beyond the Cliché: Contemporary French Cinema

When Jean-Marie Le Clézio gave a press conference in Paris last week upon his being named the 2008 Nobel Literature laureate, he answered one question – that was submitted by both French and British journalists: does this award disprove the idea of a decline in French culture? His reply, though good-natured, was dismissive, saying that [...]

Imitation of Life

I’ve always found dubious the notion that certain times in the past were ‘a more innocent age’; it is bandied about a lot when referring to the more demure sexual mores of times gone, the 1950s being the prime example. Of course the ‘innocence’ of comely young ladies (and it is nearly always ladies who [...]

Class Trip

An article by Seanachie of Pleasures of Underachievement • May 26th 2008

A surprise from Cannes, the host country got its first Palme d’Or since Maurice Pialat’s Sous le soleil de Satan in 1987. The winner was Laurent Cantet for Entre les murs (known in English as The Class) an adaptation of Parisian teacher and Cahiers du Cinéma critic François Bégaudeau’s novel of two years ago. The [...]

We’re Not Worthy – On Watching Bad (and Good) Left-Wing Films

An article by Oliver Farry of Irish Left Review • March 31st 2008

There’s a famous story about the technical problems encountered by Soviet director Aleksandr Dovzhenko while shooting his 1930 film Earth, an admiring account of the effect of collectivization on the Russian peasantry. Working with non-professional actors, he was shooting a scene one day that showed the arrival of a tractor on a farm on the [...]

Sins of the Father

Sins of the Father:

Tracing the Decisions

That Shaped the Irish Economy,

by Conor McCabe

from The History Press

Now Available as an e-Book.

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