Artistic license or Artistic distortion

For someone who considers watching films on Irish history a regular past-time, the news that a new film is to be made about the Easter 1916 rebellion brought a smile to my face.

It will join the ranks of other films made depicting Ireland's turbulent history, the majority of which I have watched at some stage.

Ofcourse, there are some interpretations of our history better than others. Compare Ken Loach's 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley,' to the terrible 'Michael Collins,' starring our own Liam Neeson (and Julia Roberts with what appeared to be an accent from the little known Irish county of Pakistan.)

Scripted and directed by Neil Jordan, the latter was lauded in some circles and even won a clutch of awards. It was also criticised for inaccuracies such as showing the use of a car bomb, a weapon not actually used by physical force republicans until the 1970's.

Although these two films depicted early 20th century Ireland, such a divide between fact and dramatic fiction is always present when one looks at the film industry that has grown out of Irish history and the movies that have been produced.

A former professor of mine, Paul Bew, has recently been quoted in the Guardian criticising the new 'Easter Sixteen' film currently in production.

He quite rightly points out that historical inaccuracies in a film like this are unhelpful. If not dealt with properly, the storyline of the rebellion at the GPO in Dublin may send out a message that a minority can succeed using armed insurrection - hardly responsible at a time when a minority of dissident republicans are waging a new campaign.

But Paul Bew is a professor of Irish history. As such, facts are his priority and not necessarily a good story - his tolerance of artistic license, as the producers in Hollywood would call it, is very low.

One would also like to think that those dissident republicans Bew fears will exploit the plot line of 'Easter Sixteen' are also well versed on Irish history (or at least their version of it), I mean they bleet on about it often enough.

If a Hollywood movie on the subject strays off the facts of history and does depict a simplistic version of the Easter Rising as being no more than a successful armed struggle against the British, it should invite derision from these dissident circles, not support.

Ofcourse Bew does have a point though. Although I enjoy these films, I watch them with a pinch (and sometimes a bucket load) of salt. They don't claim to be documentaries and therefore should not be treated as such.

The conveyor belt of films on Irish history has undoubtedly been at times unhelpful in the current transitory stage of Ireland's evolution, especially in the six counties - a stage that began at the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and heavily involves issues to do with the legacy of our past.

To have a constant stream of versions of our history poured over, interpreted and some would say distorted, by directors and script writers often from places other than Ireland, is arguably a dangerous factor during this transition.

Bew is right to highlight the subtle potency of these productions.

The ripples caused by the inaccuracies in these types of films - made under the guise of artistic license should not be underestimated.

Oliver Hirschbiegel's 'Five Minutes of Heaven,' shown last week on BBC saw a true murder in Lurgan in the 70's have a completely fictional story written around it and could easily be misinterpreted as the true story of a meeting and reconciliation between killer and victim.

How ironic it is that the feature should have scenes of the pair being set-up to meet by a tv production company - the same ilk of producers who would no doubt defend Hirschbiegel's artisitic license to distort the facts of Jim Griffin's murder (all the while hamming up 'based on a true story' and playing down the fictional element in the advertising) in the name of artistic catharthis.

But it's not the films themselves that are the problem, it's what people do with them.

I find it hard to believe the C.I.R.A and R.I.R.A would, or will, use a film to base their current struggle upon. Some of the more intellectually vulnerable in society however, may by unduly influenced by what are essentially show pieces on sections of our history, and under this influence subscribe to the political dissent as espoused by hard-line republicans currently.

Those who contend it is healthy to have directors from all over the world look at our past, especially if we are not prepared to do so comprehensively ourselves, would argue these films provide a different perspective and at the very least tell a good story.

In a very immediate way these films provide a form of story-telling and story-sharing that is easily accessible to people.

I used to work in a local bookies with people from all over Belfast, and from every background. Although politics was not usually discussed, unless you count discussion of the odds on the horse 'Reds under the Bed', after lending one of my managers a copy of 'Hunger' by Steve McQueen , we spent the afternoon talking about the film and his memories of that time.

He told me it was the first time he had properly sat down and watched something about the hunger strikes, fact or fiction. He was from the Woodstock Road.

It is obvious that if we keep an open, yet educated mind when watching these films, they need not be dangerous or inflammatory.

If they stay true to the events they are portraying, such films can even teach us something we didn't know - like who knew Kitty Kiernan was from Pakistan?