I remember seeing Michael Collins at the video store growing up thinking it must be kind of like an Irish Braveheart or something because it came out around the same time, and I was too stupid and lazy to do any research about it. But something about the cover always kept me from watching it, even though I loved Braveheart. I think it’s because on the VHS cover, Liam Neeson is mid-speech, but it kind of looks like he’s dancing. So I thought it might have been a Lord of the Dance-type thing (in defense of my stupidity, I was twelve at the time), which was a bit of a punchline in the ‘90s. Whatever the reason, I skipped it and never watched it until a few days ago when a friend of mine asked me to do an episode of his history podcast about it. I agreed, but I’m still worried I’m too stupid for the topic.
When it comes to Irish history, I’m a true moron. I’ve seen a handful of movies about the Irish Civil War and The Troubles (Hunger, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Boxer, Belfast, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, In the Name of the Father, and Five Minutes of Heaven), but while those films all do their part in conveying an aspect of life during those events, they are no substitute for genuine research. After watching all of these movies, I would spend an hour or so going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, usually stopping when things got too complicated.
I’m usually fine with a historical movie being partially or even completely fictional in the name of entertainment. I’ve always felt that it’s the viewer’s responsibility to research the true story. And, despite how annoying it is, I’ve always enjoyed pointing out the real story when someone tries to talk about a historical event based solely on a movie they watched. There’s a nerdy high you get when you tell someone, “You know, they didn’t even have kilts when Braveheart took place.”
This is fine, for the most part, when the film in question is covering an event from hundreds of years ago. Mel Gibson has done this a few times. Braveheart and The Patriot are both wildly inaccurate and are basically anti-British propaganda. Many rightfully have a problem with this, but I still love these movies because I find them entertaining. And I can forgive the inaccuracy because it’s not like we’re still at war with the British, and the films couldn’t affect any current events. They are propaganda after the fact. That’s still troubling, but mostly harmless.
Michael Collins is a bit different because history was still happening upon its release. I don’t think it’s dangerous, exactly, but it had the capacity to influence people before the end of the Troubles. Gerry Adams was president of Sinn Féin when the movie was released, and he was compared to Michael Collins (Adams is a character in the recent miniseries Say Nothing, in which he is implicated in the murder and/or disappearance of multiple missing persons from the time of the Troubles, which he has denied for years). If your main character is being compared to one of the most powerful politicians in Ireland, it’s a bit different than making a movie about something from hundreds of years ago and fudging the facts a little.
I haven’t come across anything suggesting the film affected any of the then current day politics. But plenty of people did take it to task for accuracy, in particular the insinuation that Éamon de Valera played a role in Collins’s death. In the film, while Collins is visiting his hometown, de Valera is nearby, considering whether or not to meet with Collins. De Valera is visibly upset, implying that he is struggling with the decision to have his former friend killed. A courier tells Collins that de Valera wants to meet the next day, and as Collins travels to the supposed meeting, he is ambushed and killed.
De Valera was in the area the night before Collins was killed, and that led writer/director Neil Jordan to take some dramatic license as he wondered, “What was he doing there?” That’s fine to ask that question, but to go ahead and answer it in the film is a bit on the reckless side. But fine, it’s a movie, not history. What annoys me is Jordan’s response when called out for these changes.
In general, it’s easy to understand why a filmmaker would be annoyed with a journalist or historian’s questions of accuracy. It’s hard to boil down any amount of history into a single film. Things need to be simplified and amplified. For instance, the scene in which an armored car bursts onto a football field and opens fire onto the crowd and players is largely dramatized. Soldiers did enter the field, but by climbing ladders and coming over the fence. A search operation escalated into the soldiers firing into the crowd, killing twelve people, with two more dying in the ensuing stampede. The important fact is that innocent people were killed that day, just in a more chaotic, and less cinematic manner. But when Jordan is asked about this, he gets hung up on the journalist calling the armored car a “tank” and ends up saying they changed it because they needed the scene to be “thirty seconds.” He is combative from the get-go, seeming to be offended that anyone would question why he would change things.
The problem here is that he’s depicting relatively recent deaths that occurred during a historical event that was, in a way, still happening when the film was made. Being accurate is going to be looked at a bit more closely in this scenario, and rather than be diplomatic about it, Jordan went on the offensive.
When asked about the implication that de Valera had Collins killed, Jordan claims that while the film had taken “great liberties” with the historical record, he did not think that the film had implicated de Valera. But on the commentary, recorded many years later, he admits that the film makes de Valera seem complicit in Collins’s death, and even calls it an “unfair” portrayal. But he immediately backtracks by asking, “What was he doing there?” He just comes across a person that refuses to admit when they are wrong, and it’s annoying, especially when recent history is being portrayed.
A number of times through the commentary, Jordan flippantly refers to “dramatic license, artistic license, and poetic license.” At one point, he says, “This is poetic license, dramatic license, historical license, whatever you call it.” I’m actually okay with this argument; I just want him to own it. I would feel much better about the film and Jordan if he had just said, “Look, this is a movie, not the historical record. This is my portrayal of the events, and anyone who wants the complete history can do the research on their own.”
I’m okay with the changes made to history in the film, but only if it’s made more clear that this is an interpretation of history. Because not only is de Valera portrayed as complicit, they also include a quote from him at the end: “It is my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins, and it will be recorded at my expense.” This quote is from a biography of Collins and cannot be confirmed by anyone. It is basically hearsay, yet it’s used at the end of the film as a final nail solidifying de Valera’s guilt regarding Collins’s death.
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