rocky road to dublin ( film )
· rocky road to dublin and the making of rocky road to dublin screen at the cork film festival on saturday. details: 00 353 21 427 2263
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commissioned by fire station artists studios and dublin docklands development authority. supported by dublin city council and dublin port company .
rocky road to dublin the last film screened at the cannes film festival in 1968. a provocative, biting portrayal of 1960s ireland: the stultifying educational system, the repressive, reactionary clergy, and the myopic cultural nationalism .
peter lennon used to say of his documentary rocky road to dublin that
the french saw it as a film, the irish as an insult .
lennon was one of those absentee irishmen obsessed by their native country. the stylish wit, film - maker ahead of his time, observant and iconoclastic journalist, started out on a rocky road of his own .
then, in 2004, with a dublin production company, loopline films, i got financial assistance from the irish film board to restore rocky road and to tell its story in a new documentary, the making of rocky road. the great raoul coutard came out of retirement to share his experience of working on an evolutionary film, a category no film dictionary records. this time we had no trouble getting it into the cork film festival .
the making of' rocky road to dublin' reunites peter lennon and cinematographer raoul coutard, who recount the making of their then controversial, now classic, documentary on ireland in the sixties .
rocky road to dublin was selected for the prestigious critics' week at the 1968 cannes film festival, where it was the last film publicly screened before the festival was stopped in solidarity with the then - erupting may' 68 events in paris. during that tumultuous period, rocky road to dublin was screened numerous times throughout paris by student groups, with whom the film' s theme of
what do you do with your revolution once you' ve got it
obviously struck a responsive chord .
rocky road and the making of was launched at the cambridge international film festival, and then, following a screening at the ica in september, will go on general uk release. ireland will come later. since october 2004 rocky road has been at festivals in belfast, amiens, chicago, memphis and moscow and soon, the korean international film festival .
made as companion piece for rocky road to dublin during its revival in the 2000s, the making of rocky road to dublin describes the journey of lennon’s iconoclastic documentary from its creation and initial life on the screen to its resurgence in popularity more than thirty years after production. present - day interviews with lennon and raoul coutard trace how the film grew from an idea into a fully - fledged feature. the film’s turbulent distribution experience, including its de facto banning in ireland and its role in paris riots of 1968 are also recounted, before the focus comes to film’s rebirth in the contemporary era and the recognition of it as a record of 1960s ireland. a companion piece to rocky road to dublin, this documentary should only be screened in conjunction with lennon’s original .
but there was something they could do: they could stop it being screened in cinemas or on the television channel rte. on saturday, when we screen a new documentary, the making of rocky road, at the cork film festival, ireland is going to discover for the first time how it smothered rocky road for three decades .
the animated the road to el dorado, on the other hand succeeded admirably .
with the renowned french nouvelle vague cameraman, raoul coutard, as a kind of exocet missile, we got child, priest and patriot to reveal themselves on camera (years before michael moore). the result was rocky road to dublin .
if you really want to go from wales to dublin in a short time, you basically want to to avoid going to cork. (dublin’s a straight shot from wales. duh. )
rocky road to dublin is a provocative and revealing portrait of ireland in the sixties, a society characterized by a stultifying educational system, a morally repressive and politically reactionary clergy, a myopic cultural nationalism, and a government which seemingly knew no boundary between church and state. now available in a newly - restored version prepared by the irish film institute, this controversial film can at last be reassessed after a nearly forty - year period of neglect. (the making of rocky road to dublin is also available, as a separate title, or purchase both for one price. see below. )
the long and sometimes rocky road to hollywood began in simple schoolboy settings for actor michael fassbender, 36, nominated for an oscar tomorrow night for his role in 12 years a slave .
though there was little chance rocky road would be distributed in ireland, in 1968 i entered it for that years cannes film festival, and it was selected to represent the country that had rejected it  much to the bewilderment of the irish establishment .
the indie film meek' s cutoff is an accidental film adaptation of the oregon trail series .
this project was the culmination of a process in which jesse jones has been working with 28 participants over a 6 month period in the fire station artists’ studios in dublin. these participants were contacted through trade unions and activist and community networks and the workshops involved film screenings and discussions as well as scripting, storyboarding and film - making tutorials. guest speakers to the workshops included film maker peter lennon who directed ‘the rocky road to dublin’, rossport five member vincent mcgrath and socialist td joe higgins .
dublin used to have 56 different cinemas. here are some of the lost ones .
as you know, there is no shortage of rock walls in ireland! but as to which wee little road between rock walls they used in the film – well, there is just such a road on inishmore, on the way to bothar .
the successful suffocation of rocky road for nearly four decades is an illustration of the fact that in a brainwashed community you dont need formal censorship laws to smother a film. with no experience of film being used in this way, the press wrote as if it wasnt a proper film at all. why should any film manager be expected to show this insulting stuff in a proper cinema?  they asked .
peter lennon was born in dublin and reported from paris for the guardian throughout the sixties. during the seventies he worked in london on the sunday times and the listener before rejoining the guardian in 1989. he has had short stories published in the new yorker and atlantic monthly. his film rocky road to dublin, which he wrote and directed, was selected for the cannes film festival of 1968. he is married with two grown children .
the film moves on to its credit sequence, over the titular song ,
the rocky road to dublin
by the dubliners. (the dubliners, in fact, supply the whole soundtrack .) the camera tracks through scenes of a beach, a country road, two priests on bicycles, and the skyline of dublin. everything looks cleaner and prettier than it does now - - no traffic - clogged roads, no fast food joints, no jeans or tracksuits, and next to no litter anywhere .
although the stereotypical image of ireland as a cultural backwater seems to bear little relation to the country' s reputation today, a culturally vibrant and economically vigorous
celtic tiger ,
it is in such moments that rocky road to dublin, as a historical film, illustrates not only how far ireland has come but also how little it has changed .
driving the dingle peninsula is very very scary. take a tour bus if you choose to see it. it is beautiful but the road is a two way road the size of a one way road. i drove all over ireland and that was the only time i was scared .
describes the film’s plot). the film concludes with a ridiculous speech by rocky balboa (a prizefighter from philly) preaching about change as the politburo give him a standing ovation. given how much the new film creed references apollo’s death in this film (again, in the trailer), it’s hilarious to think of the amount of new fans who are going to leave the new film thinking “gee, i must check out the movie where apollo creed dies in the ring! ” only to sit down to rocky iv .
dublin used to have 56 different cinemas. here are some of the lost ones. comments
to the earlier film, although they are in no way connected to each other .
well, it doesn' t matter. lennon, that superb writer and journalist, made a glorious film, the rocky road to dublin, which was worth a dozen movies in the cv of a less distinguished man. it was such an energetic, punchy, daring film, not least in its challenge to the cronyist political establishment which infuriated the younger generation in ireland – then as now. his film has something to say in ireland in 2011, reeling from the celtic tiger comedown and badly let down by the same self - satisfied sort of politician whose back - slapping smugness was exposed in rocky road. it is available on dvd. now is the time to watch peter lennon' s masterpiece again .
i' ve lived in dublin all my life and i work in the james joyce library, university college dublin. in june 2013 i married my wife michelle .
in addition to scenes of the may' 68 protests in paris, the making of rocky road to dublin features rare cannes footage of jean - luc godard and françois truffaut demanding that the festival be shut down and the argumentative responses from peter lennon and others in the audience. the documentary also reprises key scenes from the original film, contrasted with a return to some of its locations nearly forty years later .
email “dublin used to have 56 different cinemas. here are some of the lost ones. ” .
in 2004, paul duane' s short documentary, the making of the rocky road to dublin, revived interest in the original, which had been restored by the irish film board, no less. lennon chuckled at the revelation that the priest offered to him by the bishop of dublin as an example of the model modern clergy had all the time enjoyed the favours of a lady friend on the side. it wasn' t schadenfreude; he was too generous for that .
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also: amy adams is stuck in wales. i’m told she has to get to dublin in a very, very short time. then, we hear once she lands in dingle, that it’s really the 27th, and she has two days to get to dublin. i’m sure she could have caught a flight over two days from cardiff to dublin – so what is it, amy – do we have two days or only one, to get to dublin ?
feedback on “dublin used to have 56 different cinemas. here are some of the lost ones. ” .
the press got a first glimpse of rocky road when i held a screening in dublin. sensing scandal, i was invited on to rte' s late late show. the show had a hatchet - man - someone i knew. two minutes before i was to go on air, he said to me :
oh, hello, peter. i just got back from america. i didn' t know you' d made a film .
two minutes later he was on air informing the country that the film had been made with communist money. (rocky road was, in fact, fully financed by an american businessman friend, victor herbert, who notably backed the english production of endgame in paris. )
though it is a spiritual successor to linklater' s 1990 film, slacker .
do you know if any filming was done on the doo lough pass (near famine memorial) - connemara? the road where the blue van steals her suitcase reminded us an awful lot of that road as well .
© irish examiner ltd, linn dubh, assumption road, blackpool, cork. registered in ireland: 523712 .
and, of course, the
road to ...
episodes of family guy take this to the level of straight - up homage .
and then? well, nothing happened. peter lennon did not make another film. when the rocky road to dublin was re - released six years ago, i wrote that he had been
cold - shouldered
by the irish establishment, which was partly true. irish cinemas wouldn' t screen it, rte didn' t broadcast it, and it didn' t actually get a full release until 2006 .
from dingle, we have options: it takes at least an hour and a bit to drive / take a bus to tralee, and then ya catch a train from tralee to mallow (in cork), change over to another train from mallow to dublin heuston… then on another train to dublin city centre (five hours, all told, from tralee to dublin c. c .) …. or you can drive from dingle to the kerry regional airport in farranfore, and catch a prop plane to dublin airport, and then ya catch a bus from the airport to o’connell street .
over the two evenings, four feature films were shown in a series of two double - bills, including peter lennon’s seminal ‘the rocky road to dublin’ and naomi klein’s recent documentary ‘the take’. the drive - in also showed a number of collaborative short films made during the course of workshops facilitated by the artist jesse jones, at fire station artists’ studios over the last year .
peter gerard lennon, film - maker and journalist: born dublin 28 february 1930; married 1962 eeva karikoski (one daughter, one son); died london 18 march 2011 .
i have been to ireland only twice, but the setting inconsistencies are rediculous. aside from that, i do enjoy the film. the film maker on the other hand…
the 2004 film crash to the 1991 film grand canyon. both movies feature the interconnected lives of and then tensions between people of different races and classes in los angeles .
the may student revolt closed down the festival after a few days, but rocky road, with its theme of what do you do with your revolution once youve got it?  was adopted by the french students, brought to paris and shown in the sorbonne amphitheatres, under siege by riot police .
i entered what was the first irish feature - length film of any significance for the cork film festival in 1967. how could they reject it? by disqualifying it on the grounds that it had had showings in dublin - one screening for about 18 people. but, to the amazement of the irish authorities, the film was selected to represent ireland at the cannes festival of 1968. the idea that an irish feature film that was good enough for cannes could not be screened at ireland' s only film festival was just too much .
after that, we received a very different sort of press coverage: from le monde, cahiers du cinema, positif, paris match; massive coverage in life, a feature in the herald tribune (
irish revolt stirs sorbonne circuit
); and, from the new york times, this judgment :
rocky road to dublin makes it outrageous, if not impossible, for outsiders to ever again see ireland only in comforting cliches .
tommy boy, a disastrous road trip starring a mismatched odd couple and the gradual destruction of a car, owes a lot to planes, trains and automobiles .
lennon took on the catholic clergy and the educational system it controlled, the anti - cricket - football - rugby gaelic sporting establishment and, of course, the censor – who admitted, sadly, he couldn' t ban rocky road as there was no sex in it. no need; after a brief run in an obscure dublin cinema, the establishment made sure it waited another 35 years to be seen again in ireland .
amidst scenes of everyday irish life - - on the streets, in the classroom, at pubs, sporting events, dance halls, and a lively discussion amongst trinity college students - - rocky road to dublin blends interviews with writers sean o' faolain and conor cruise o' brien, a spokesman for the gaelic athletic association, theater producer jim fitzgerald, a member of the censorship board, an editor of the irish times, film director john huston, and a young catholic priest, father michael cleary .
we celebrated; ireland persisted in sulking for decades. but the irish film archive finally gave it a home. and last year, rod stoneman and the irish film board agreed to finance the restoration of the old film and the making of this new documentary .
on the aran islands. the exteriors, anyway. the interiors were shot on sets in a warehouse in dublin .
1. boston isn’t boston. except for generic b - roll of boston, the film - makers never shot in boston. the scenes supposedly in boston were shot in and around dublin castle in ireland .
walking through cong, i feel like at any moment the scene will change to black and white, and john wayne will coming striding down the road looking for victor mclaglen .
one has to be wary of being fair to regimes whose apparatus for being unfair permanently exceeds ones own by 10, 000 times. but in fairness  or out of sympathy with my repressed countrymen  i have to say that rocky road was a pretty indigestible item. instead of the model of freedom and decency the republic took itself to be, it is described in one scene by irish writer sean ofaolain as :
for the next three decades rocky road wasn' t shown, except for some late - night screenings at small festivals in the 1990s. no cinema manager in ireland wanted to offend the parish priest - or indeed himself - by showing it. it was out of the question that rte, a tool of church and state, would ever transmit it .
but cork still had a problem and the film censor could not help them. i had been careful not to have any sex in the film and the censor himself delivered his verdict to me in an endearing phrase: since there is no sex in the film peter, there is nothing i can do against you .
disney' s frozen to tangled, from title to character design to setting. this led many to believe it was just going to be'' tangled'' in snow before the film proved them very wrong .
though
phantom
came first - just barely - its scene of a muscular, gay frankenstein monster with a blond pudding - bowl haircut being born inside a tank is so similar to
rocky horror
that some screenings of the latter have edited this sequence into the film as a joke .
in the commitments, outspan ended up as a busker on the streets of dublin. twenty years later the same actor, glen hansard, starred in once which opened with his character... busking on the streets of dublin. bonus points due to his character in once being unnamed .
the 2015 disaster film san andreas is essentially the first act of 2012 stretched out into a feature film, even containing many of the tropes that roland emmerich used in his disaster flicks .
while the film was not officially banned, the irish government did try to prevent it from being screened. apart from a seven - week run at a dublin cinema, it was shown only sporadically until it was restored and eventually released on dvd in 2004 .
if the film' s cultural work is finished, its historical place will always be secure .
fire station artists' studios, 9 - 11 lower buckingham street, dublin 1, ireland t: + 353. 1. 855 6735
thanks jerry. yes i believe it is dublin, just had wondered where. not to worry; i might just stumble upon it whilst travelling around. thanks again .
a time to kill is a spiritual follow - up to the preceding joel schumacher directed film based off of a john grisham legal thriller novel the client .
going to ireland in july 2016. traveling to dublin and the south of ireland. don’t have too many days to spend there but i do want to go to either the ring of kerry or the dingle peninsula. can’t decide between the two. any help would be appreciated .
ironically, it was shown at the 1968 cannes film critics' week, as the official irish entry, after which truffaut and jean - luc godard suspended the festival in solidarity with the striking paris students. footage of the event shows a furious lennon standing up in the audience to berate this arbitrary behaviour. first, thwarted by the right, now by the left. at least rocky road was seen by the paris students, who sympathised with its strident take on the revolution that went wrong .
thank you so much for all the information which you folks have posted here, and to jerry garrett for having the blog online in the first place. after seeing the movie “leap year” i was really curious as to where all of these scenic places in the film really are. i visited dublin in 2009 for arthur’s day, but never made it to the western shore of ireland. i did get out of dublin to howth and rathfarnum but my trip wasn’t long enough to do as much as i wanted to, so now i have to go back! i’m planning a trip to galway with my sister and am very excited to put some of these locations on my list of places to see. thank you so very much! melissa (from the “real” boston, not the “fake” dublin - boston! )
thanks for posting this awesome read. i had no idea about these myths, great film though !
in that brainwashed society, anyone who stepped outside the pale was assumed, in the most natural way, to have no rights. when i protested, the response was :
jaysus, what did you expect ?
apart from the irish times, whose critic fergus linehan championed rocky road over and over, and later sean kearney in the old sunday independent, the press coverage was mostly atrocious .
well almost no way. it was rejected as an official entry on the farcical grounds that it had already been screened in dublin  to a grand total of 18 people .
goodfellas is itself a spiritual successor to scorsese' s earlier film mean streets. according to the director, each film represents a step up in the mob hierarchy, starting with neighborhood punks and ending with the true power brokers at the top as in casino .
wastelands 2
is an existential film set in a post - apocalyptic, graffiti - based world. the plot revolves around three characters who cross paths on a journey to find the meaning of a trail of artwork left behind from a nomadic artist. the film features several prominent new york graffiti artist and uses guerilla film making practices .
john wick is a spiritual successor to point blank. although the former features some plot points similar to the road to perdition, it is more about a stoic badass criminal who goes after a powerful crime family in search of a macguffin, with hyperstylized direction and action .
but that “shortcut to dublin, ” that – in the movie she thought was cork – probably explains getting blown out – via a nasty storm – to a dingle that i don’t feckin’ recognize as being dingle .
12 angry films was a temporary drive in cinema that showed films examining class, migration and social justice in dublin’s docklands over two nights in nov 2006 .
leaving the driving to others frees you to ogle the scenery. the road does keep the person behind the wheel a bit busy. i recommend, if you drive it yourself, to stop often, get out and walk about a little, and take lots of pictures .
rocky ii is a utilitarian ‘very good sequel’, no where near as genuine or necessary as the first film, but still reasonably heartfelt and plausible enough as a conclusion to the plot of the first film. in typical 1970s style, the film opens mere minutes after the first, creating a strong continuity strand between the two (for better or worse). the pacing is a little bit clunkier, the dramatic moments are a little bit more forced and while the fighting is more polished, the dialogue and the atmosphere feel far less natural. nevertheless, it’s still quite a nice film and arguably among the better of the sequels. the ending is a lot of fun and people forget how many of the iconic series moments actually come from this film rather than the first .
the now - 80 - year - old coutard relates his memorable experiences of making the film and his impressions of ireland at the time, while peter lennon details the film' s largely negative critical reception in ireland and the neglect into which it had fallen before it was finally restored by the irish film institute in 2004 .
if rocky iii was a silly cartoon, then rocky iv is an outright superheroic farce. it not only jumps the shark, it squats, deadlifts and bench - presses it atop a snowy mountain surrounded by 80s synth - metal. there’s a reason it has its own unique ‘so - bad - it’s - good’ cult following that exists completely independent of the rest of the series. the whole thing is just ridiculous, from paulie getting a robot wife (? !) to the soviet empire entering the world of professional boxing, to ivan drago having enough super - steroid - strength to shatter a volkswagen, to apollo dying in the ring (i’m not spoiling anything, it’s in the film’s trailer) to rocky shouting ‘draaaagggooo! ’ at the top of a russian mountain (probably in vancouver) to the film’s full 25 minutes of montages. once again it’s hard to deny the entertainment value, once again stallone ups the ante in terms of his own physicality (his full - body sit - ups are a sight to behold) and the baller 80s soundtrack is awesome (the song ‘burning heart’
the film was entered at the cannes film festival in 1968 and was shown just before the the festival was abandoned in support of student protests of that year. it managed to have a brief run of two weeks in dublin to sold - out audiences. it has never been shown on irish television and despite the (not surprising) snub that it received in ireland it became a huge success with those very students who brought the cannes film festival to close. the film provided a cautionary answer to the old question of “what do you do with your revolution now that you have it? ’ in ireland that answer, sadly, was “give it to the church and the bourgeoisie. ” the full film is actually now available for viewing on youtube. the quality of the file conversion was not terribly good so the resolution is poor compared to the dvd. it' s still quite watchable though. urltoken
ireland is beautiful and after watching this film and “p. s. i love you”, i can’t wait to explore such a gorgeous place .
encouraged by the controversy he had stirred with a series of newspaper articles and inspired by french' new wave' filmmakers of the era, dublin - born peter lennon, who had lived and worked in paris as a journalist for a decade, decided to revisit his native country in 1967 to make a film assessing the state of the nation .
even though ireland had practically no film industry, it did have an international film festival, to be held in cork that october. there seemed no way it could wriggle out of accepting an irish film which had been selected for cannes and had picked up excellent reviews from cahiers du cinéma, positif, paris match, the new york times, and the international herald tribune .
( 2001), a re - assessment of casements life, won gilsenan an irish film and television academy award and best feature documentary at the celtic film festival. prior to that, gilsenan was one of three directors behind the ambitious history of the irish diaspora ,
best known as a documentary film - maker, gilsenan has also made feature films, short fiction films and has directed for theatre. he is chairperson of the irish film institute and a member of the irish film board. most of his later documentaries have been made for rt by his production company, yellow asylum films. gilsenan made his name with
my own experience with the franchise is almost accidental. having remembered the essential bits and bobs of the films from catching pieces of them on various saturday evening rté ‘big, big movie’ broadcasts, i happened upon the complete (at the time) dvd boxset of rockys 1 - 5 for the bargain price of 30 quid. i had a few vouchers i was looking to use up, a few holidays left and stallone’s pseudo - comeback rocky balboa (rocky vi for those of us who kept count) was soon to be released. why not? this resulted in a great love for an emotional rollercoaster, a drama - soaked, action - packed, schmaltz - stained, redemptive road paved by five films varying from epic to mundane in literal and metaphorical terms .
just watched the film this weekend on verizon fios’ on demand. my wife and i vacation in ireland regularly with our last trip being this past christmas to dublin (which by the way i share declan’s initial opinion of! ! !) and county clare. we enjoyed the scenery but had numerous chuckles over the geographical gaffs .
was screened for only a few weeks at a single dublin theater and was critically condemned and accused of being communist - funded. but as lennon explains, while the irish saw
peter lennon' s film about ireland was feted at cannes and adopted by the revolutionaries of 1968. but in his home country, cinemas refused to screen it
really, just about every movie made in the decade or so after blade runner combining science fiction and city noir sensibilities has been invariably compared to that film .
the irish establishment took one, brief look at rocky road, and suffocated it for 37 years. no irish cinema would screen it and there was never any question that rte (irish public service television) would either. rte was totally submissive to the church (as were most irish politicians). indeed, at the point where only about 18 people had seen it at a private screening, rte, on its late late show, dealt the hammer blow by warning the nation that this unseen film was backed by communist money.  in fact, it was entirely funded by an american businessman friend of mine .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
( 1968). produced for channel 4, it was the subject of local criticism by the industrial development authority, but it won a special jury prize at the 1989 european film awards. in the same year, gilsenan made the short film ,
ring of kerry is a little longer, and farther away from dublin (but not by much). either is sublimely beautiful. you can’t miss, whichever one you pick .
c’mon folks, it’s a movie, not a travel documentary. americans watching this could care less about whether dingle is accurately depicted, or any road, pub, or castle. the main point is that they will fall in love with not only the story, but also with the landscape, culture, aura, and people of ireland itself, from dublin to the sea in all directions. which county, town, cliff, road, castle, hotel, or pub any of it happens in doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. that’s called hollywood, so you might as well get used to it. does it matter what city citizen kane was shot in ?
n the 1960s, i was a freelance journalist living in paris and working for the guardian, which sent me home to ireland to cover the dublin theatre festival. soon after my arrival, my drinking friends began trying to convince me that ireland had shed all its shackles .
nobody pays any attention to the clergy ,
they said .
censorship is a thing of the past .
i didn' t really care one way or another, living in paris, but finally i asked the newspaper to let me stay on in dublin for a few weeks. the result was a series of articles with headlines like climate of repression, students in blinkers, and grey eminence (about the archbishop of dublin) .
thanks jerry for the information. now, i can find the many beautiful locations in the film and the real dingle too .
spies like us was, during production, described as a road movie, and even features bob hope in a cameo... hitting a golf ball into the same tent as the characters in the middle of afghanistan .
hi all – the scene near the lakes where amy had her bag stolen was not doo lough – lovely as it is. it’s in mayo, the road between leenane and louisburgh and is heaven on earth. link to street view in google maps: urltoken
peter lennon' s film about ireland was feted at cannes and adopted by the revolutionaries of 1968. but in his home country, cinemas refused to screen it .
the patriot is also one to saving private ryan from the perspective of being an american - themed war film by robert rodat and was also scored by john williams .
day of the animals to its director william girdler' s previous film grizzly, since it has a similar location, plot, and shares some of the cast .
thanks paul. having lived in dublin and dun laoghaire for a time, i know the area’s pluses and minuses, for sure! during our last visit, we rented a car as soon as we landed and did a “reverse trip” out of dublin to the west coast of ireland. i highly recommend this route! heading west, no matter how far or fast you travel in ireland, you know the best is always yet to come .
at this point, ireland, along with the soviet union, had probably the most repressive ideological apparatus of book and film censorship in the world. clerical remote controlled censorship filleted foreign influence mercilessly  even dementedly. there was virtually no film or publishing industry .
i just saw leap year & enjoyed it — fantasy yes, but fun. since we were in ireland this past dec. , it brought back memories. i knew some scenes weren’t consistent but you can’t hide ireland’s beauty. we travelled by car from shannon to dingle to dublin & back; a wonderful sight seeing trip in many areas most tourists don’t get to see. enjoy the film and don’t take it so seriously .
as they share many similar themes (apart from the title involving
road
that can easily be confused). both center around the relationship between a father and son who have nothing left but each other (in both cases he had a wife but she' s dead) who through events beyond their control are forced to travel down a
road
both literally and metaphorically trying to survive whilst bringing up questions about morality - the father trying to be a good man doing what' s best for his son, trying to find a place for themselves and running into problems on the way, including people who want to kill them .
hi jerry, sorry for my little english. i’m italian and i’m looking for location of leap year movies because i love this film and this summer i’ll go in ireland. today i read your site! thanks for the information: it’s time i try to discover the castle in the movie and the place of the final scene. i’ll go in ireland by plane to cork and then i’ll go to dublin with a car. bye
to propose to her finance on feb. 29, the traditional day upon which women may propose to men .
i loved living in dingle for 19 months, from 2003 - 2004. it’s hard enough to find the town from land, driving west – with the name changes on the road signs from irish and back to english, starting in 2005. this film makes it really difficult for the town to be found… to make any gains from losses the name changes may or may not have occurred. (there are those in the town who see the tourism as a blessing and a curse at the same time. )
the park at the end is st. stephen’s green. the sunny day may be a bit of movie magic, as i hardly ever remember it being that nice when i lived in dublin .
so cork gave us a screening. it was at lunchtime, on the day they had invited all the media out of town to a free oyster - and - guinness lunch in kenmore, 70 miles away. so we hired a hall the next day, causing more scandal. with the financial potential a scandal offers, one dublin cinema took the film and ran it for seven weeks to gleeful audiences .
hola susie! you are a lady with “true grit”! good for you to visit ireland. some people only dream about such adventures. you are making it a reality. buses and trains are very good from dublin to all parts of ireland. they are also very inexpensive. taxis and rental cars are expensive, however. i think you should be safe traveling alone. be careful in parts of some big cities, like dublin, limerick & cork. this is true in any large city, i am sure. the pub in the movie is on the aran islands, but the inside of it was a movie set that was built in dublin. there are pleasant places to stay on the aran islands. galway is also very nice, and it is a good place to take the ferry to galway, for take a bus tour of connemara, where the scenes with the red renault were shot. i hope you have a wonderful time. please write to us here at garrett on the road with your experiences. my very best wishes !
the film revolutionary road is an interesting subversion of spiritual successor status. it' s set in america, it starred leonardo di caprio and kate winslet (as husband in wife) in their first film together after they' d co - starred in titanic 1997. some people initially thought it therefore as titanic' s spiritual successor. the storyline, however, is, if anything, entirely the opposite of titanic and only gets worse from there. plus, it' s based on a completely unrelated novel .
[ … ] the road trip in “due date” is the most whacked - out cinematic misadventure since 2009’s “leap year”, which turned the map of ireland inside out .
i don' t think this is kansas, toto
[ … ]
i agree, it is a magical place and everywhere you go there is a remembrance of the quiet man film. it seems to not have changed much over the many years .
looper is a remake of the 1994 sci - fi film timecop, but with the camp replaced with being as ultra - stylish as possible .
the filmmakers had to film in ireland so that the film’s backers could claim a tax break (allowed under recent revisions of section 481 of the irish tax code) for their investment in the production. the choice of locations within ireland was up to the filmmakers, and they took many liberties, to make dublin look like boston, and make locations work with the idea of a journey across ireland in the script. why they did what they did, who knows? but they had to scrimp to make their irish budget of €13 million last for the 5 - month shoot, and to pay a crew of 150. the filmmakers also promised to hire 1, 500 extras throughout the course of the shoot. did you see that many extras? i sure didn’t .
with the release of creed, i decided it would be just splendid to blitz my way through the ‘rocky’ franchise in more or less one sitting. this actually isn’t as strenuous as one might think – leaving aside the fact that every one of the films is at least quite entertaining, rockys ii - vi are never longer than 110 economic minutes. only the first film is two hours long. so really it wasn’t any worse than a netflix binge - watch .
zootopia is one to robin hood. in fact, zootopia director byron howard' s love for robin hood was the reason why the idea for zootopia was pitched in the first place, since he wanted to do a film similar to one of his favorite toons .
whatever, wherever, it was all lovely. i’m addicted to the scenery in this film, and that includes matthew good’s face, so i watch it every time it’s on cable .
if your looking for a small town on the sea look at greystones in wicklow (not rustic like the ones in the film but is a smaller family town with little cafe’s and a long coast line to walk along) about a 10 min drive in to the mountains to be up to all that scenery .
and inverted again with riddick, which pretty much throws out the previous film in the first few minutes and then rehashes the plot of pitch black .
, shot on a mixture of super - 8, vhs and super - 16 and blown up to 35mm. while the film won many critical plaudits, it was also criticised for its regressive gender politics. gilsenan returned to documentary with
the 1980 musical film xanadu is a spiritual successor to the 1944 movie cover girl. in xanadu, gene kelly plays an older version of danny mcguire (his character in cover girl). his character doesn' t make any direct references to the story or characters in the older movie except for the mention of once owning a nightclub. danny also remembers meeting kira before somehow. rita hayworth' s role in the older film doesn' t really suggest any connections to kira or the muses. but in the 1947 film down to earth (the direct inspiration for xanadu), hayworth actually does play the muse
terpsichore
. and down to earth does make references to cover girl, however .
it’s faster than walking from dingle to… wherever – heck – it’s tough enough to walk from dingle to camp (uphill from annascaul), which is halfway to tralee .
adventures of don juan is once again another swashbuckler starring flynn. he here is once again playing a classic european hero who fights against a corrupt man of power in his nation who is trying to take over and woos a woman of royalty. even the title seems to be deliberately trying to harken back to that film .
highwaymen is one to director robert harmon' s earlier film the hitcher. both heavily feature car chases, pursuit along the highways, and a serial killer with a fixation on the male protagonist .
the sea hawk is again a swashbuckling adventure film starring flynn as a charismatic pirate captain. and once again curtiz is in the director' s chair .
thanks cindy, the bed - and - breakfast “inn” in “leap year” was actually a set, built inside an industrial warehouse located on dublin’s north side. exterior shots cut into that scene were shot mostly in county wicklow .
the death of peter lennon, guardian journalist and documentary film - maker, causes a complicated kind of sadness. i met him first on joining the guardian in 1999; he was at the paper on a freelance writing contract. peter was funny, charming, and self - deprecating. he would occasionally participate in office discussions about how we should cover the cannes film festival, without ever attempting to pull rank — as he was arguably entitled to do, given that he was a real live film - maker who had had something selected at cannes .
a christmas carol 2009 directed by robert zemeckis serves as this to his preceding cgi - animated christmas film the polar express. both films are based on a classic book centered around the holiday and are about a person whose perspective on life and attitude towards the holiday are changed as he goes through a supernatural journey started by beings who want to help them
open their eyes
so to speak. . each also has a leading actor who plays several roles in the film. ironically enough a marionette puppet of ebenezer scrooge appears in the film during the scene where they are in a car filled with abandoned / misfit toys being used by the hobo ghost. the scrooge played by jim carrey in the subsequent film has a strikingly similar appearance / design.
rocky road to dublin is a 1967 documentary film by irish-born journalist peter lennon and french cinematographer raoul coutard , examining the contemporary state of the republic of ireland , posing the question , " what do you do with your revolution once you 've got it ? " it argues that ireland was dominated by cultural isolationism , gaelic and clerical traditionalism at the time of its making .
rocky road to dublin is a 1967 documentary film by irish-born journalist peter lennon and french cinematographer raoul coutard, examining the contemporary state of the republic of ireland, posing the question, " what do you do with your revolution once you've got it? " it argues that ireland was dominated by cultural isolationism, gaelic and clerical traditionalism at the time of its making.
rocky road to dublin is a 1967 documentary film by irish-born journalist peter lennon and french cinematographer raoul coutard, examining the contemporary state of the republic of ireland, posing the question, " what do you do with your revolution once you've got it? " it argues that ireland was dominated by cultural isolationism, gaelic and clerical traditionalism at the time of its making.