Sheridan open to filming in County Clare

INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed film director and six-time Academy Award nominee, Jim Sheridan thinks there may well be the basis for a movie in Ireland’s current financial crisis or at least a book. And he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of shooting a film in County Clare again.

Speaking in Ennis last week, while launching the Clare Live the Life promotional DVD, Mr Sheridan was full of praise for the Banner County.
“It’s got a kind of sophistication and a civilisation. You have city life and at the same time all the grandeur of the countryside. It’s definitely different than Connemara. It’s more contained, you know what I mean. So I love the county,” he said.
Sheridan was told about the Clare Live the Life DVD by his friend, cinematographer, Sean Corcoran, whose son John produced the film for the Clare Tourism Forum.
“You know the amazing thing is I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was I was coming down to. I knew it was through Sean Corcoran and it was to promote Clare but I didn’t know who was making this, was it Bord Fáilte or whatever.
“Then I realised what it was all about and met with Maureen Cleary (Clare Tourism Forum marketing executive), who has been appointed by this interface between the public and the private sector. In a way, I think that’s the way you have to go and try to create something,” he commented.
Recalling how part of Into the West was filmed in Clare, primarily around and on the Cliffs of Moher, he added he would be open to filming here again. He thinks there is a possible theme for a movie in the challenging times people in Ireland are now facing, including many who have opted to head to America and elsewhere to seek work.
“It’s really all about the internal story in a movie and you’ve got everything here. I’ve often thought there was a good story here, not even really emigrants, just people going to America.
“The Government have made a lot of decisions and people feel that they’re putting up with a lot and are giving out a lot,” the film director remarked.
He continued,” There’s a movie in it or there’s a book in it. Definitely, I’d like to write a book about a situation like this but that doesn’t mean it would make a good movie. Sometimes you have a great story that doesn’t make a great movie. It’s hard for the movie to understand derivatives or something that isn’t concrete.
“I think there’s a funny story in 10 or 20 people who made it and then it all went wrong. I don’t know if it would be about the bankers. Then what would we call it – On the Crest of a Wave?”
Asked for his views on the Irish film industry, he was quick to encourage up and coming filmmakers to travel to gain the experience they need.
“There have been good tax incentives there. Most movies are made over in America. Ireland is a great place to make a movie. I think we have to consider selling rather than making. How do we make a movie that other people outside of Ireland want to see? We can’t make movies that just go on the shelf.
“In a normal business you make a product then you test it. You find out if there’s an interest in it, if there’s a market for it. You have to find out if there’s a market for the movie in England, America and elsewhere. Basically, you sell the movie before you make it.
“People never apply business to the movie industry and we’ve got to start doing that here. Otherwise, we’re developing films that won’t go anywhere,” he advised.
“To young filmmakers, I would say to cover yourself by getting out there and learning. I just got out there in the States and learned what to do. You have to take the road less travelled. You can’t just say I want to make movies and then not travel.
“We tend to get caught up in our own little environment, our little place, our own little problems. We need to get more universal and have more overview. I think that people just have to go and live.
“There’s a lot of great people working in Ireland in the film industry and a huge amount of talent. There’s a lot of people working in it but not getting paid. The progress being made in animation is amazing, world class. We don’t appreciate that because we don’t understand it.
“Eoin Colfer is probably one of the best authors out there, probably the best books outside Harry Potter, but nobody knows about him because it’s not a certain way, it’s not Irish Times stuff – that kind of uppity, middle-class stuff,” Sheridan continued.
He said one of the problems in Ireland is the tendency to look inward, rather than outward.
“People talk about the state of the nation, it’s not the state of the nation, it’s the state of the world. It’s just about this complex living that we inherited and there was nobody smart to know, to understand what was going on in Ireland.
“There were a few people talking about it but that was the worldwide problem. We were at the top of the wave in the highest form, looking down and we were so unlucky.
“I don’t think there was enough thought given to what would happen when we came down to the bottom of the wave. But I don’t think you can blame a guy who was developing houses, or a builder, when they were offered money to go out and develop. What were they going to do, say no. No, he’s going to grasp it with both hands.
“The banks were supposed to be watching out for things like this and they bailed. The Government bailed as well. Our national self-esteem seems to have taken a battering. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
“I don’t think we were alone in creating a crisis. This hit America about three years before Ireland and we should have been warned then,” he commented.
On all of this forming the basis of a film, he added, “I think yes there is a story in this, no doubt but I think it’s more about finding a hero, you know. Someone who gets through something like this.
“There are a lot of heroic stories like that. I have an idea for one. I can’t really get into it because I don’t have the rights to it.”
The director is currently working on a film called Dream House with Rachel Weiss, Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts.
Sheridan’s most well-known films since the 1980s have been My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, Into the West, In America, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and Brothers.