Movies - Michael Collins

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	Movies - Michael Collins

Michael Collins is a semi-fictitious film released on October 11, 1996 about Michael Collins, the Irish patriot and revolutionary who died in the Irish Civil War. Liam Neeson stars as the title character. Also starring are Aidan Quinn (as Harry Boland), Stephen Rea, Alan Rickman (as Eamon de Valera) and Julia Roberts. It was directed by Neil Jordan. The soundtrack was written by Elliot Goldenthal.

Though highly regarded in terms of its narrative form and structure, the film received criticism from historians for its many historical inaccuracies and fictions. It is, however, the second most successful movie in Irish box-office history and the most successful Irish-made film of all time.

The film's inaccuracies and fictions

Fictional aspects that proved controversial include:

its coverage of Harry Boland, a close friend of Collins; Boland's death did not occur in the manner suggested by the film.
the suggestion that Collins headed the delegation to London that negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty; (Arthur Griffith led the delegation, with Collins as his deputy).
its claim that Edward Broy of the Dublin Metropolitan Police was murdered by the British after his arrest in Vaughan's hotel (Broy in fact survived the Irish War of Independence and civil war, a decade later becoming Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. Contrary to the explicit claim in the film, he lived to a ripe old age).
its fictionalised account of the circumstances surrounding Collins' death, and the claim that he had travelled to Cork, where he was shot, in order to meet Éamon de Valera, who, the film implied, bore some responsibility for his death, given that the assassin had been with de Valera that day. There is no evidence whatsoever for any of this, even though de Valera was in the area the night before Collins assassination. The film's treatment of de Valera was widely criticised as unfair.
its other most dramatic fiction involved the blowing up of a carload of hardline northern unionist detectives sent to take over in Dublin Castle to "deal" with Collins and the IRA. No killings of police took place in Dublin Castle. Some commentators contended that this was a none-too-subtle effort to link the Anglo-Irish War with the later Troubles, as while car-bombs were common in the latter, they were unknown in the former.
its fictionalised account of the end of the Easter Rising. In the movie the surrender appears to take place outside the GPO, when this was not the case.
its repetition of the (admittedly widespread) myths that Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army split over (i) a supposed "Oath of Allegiance to the King": there is no such clause in the treaty and (ii) Partition. (The oath of allegiance is to the Irish Free State – the reference to the King is merely the rather meaningless phrase "be faithful to his Majesty"; partition was expected to produce a version of Northern Ireland half the size of the final reality. The record of the Dáil debates on the treaty shows that the split was primarily about "Dominion status" rather than complete independence.)
its depiction of the Black and Tans' shooting of players and spectators in Croke Park, which suggests that armoured cars were used to carry out the attack. In reality, while the Black and Tans did actually fire into the crowd, they did not coordinate the attack as carefully as the films suggests.
Collins' assertion that Irish people would be "cannon fodder in the Somme" suggests conscription had been introduced. It had not, though it was certainly proposed.

Jordan's defence

Neil Jordan defended his film by saying that it could not provide an entirely accurate account of events, given that it was a two-hour film that had to be understandable to a world-wide audience who would not know the minutiæ of Irish history during 1916 - 1922. His critics, however, alleged that the scale of the fiction introduced, the use of real names for 'composite characters' who, like Broy, did not die as suggested, and in particular the misrepresentation of de Valera, the manner of Collins' death, and the introduction of the car bomb, undermined the film's trustworthiness.

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Movies - Michael Collins

The film's inaccuracies and fictions

Jordan's defence

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