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ANGELA'S ASHES |
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Universal Pictures International and Paramount Pictures present a David Brown/Scott Rudin/ Dirty Hands production. An Alan Parker film.
Prod: Scott Rudin, David Brown, Alan Parker; Exec prod: Adam Schroeder, Eric Steel; Dir: Alan Parker; Scr: Laura Jones, Alan Parker, based on the book by Frank McCourt; Ph: Michael Seresin; Prod des: Geoffrey Kirkland; Cost des: Consolata Boyle; Ed: Gerry Hambling; Mus: John Williams.
With Emily Watson (Angela McCourt), Robert Carlyle (Malachy McCourt), Joe Breen (Young Frank McCourt), Ciaran Owens (Middle Frank McCourt), Michael Legge (Older Frank McCourt), Ronnie Masterson (Grandma Sheehan), Pauline McLynn (Aunt Aggie), Liam Carney (Unce Pa Keating), Eanna MacLiam (Uncle Pat), Andrew Bennett (Narrator).
International distribution: Universal Pictures International/UIP.
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A rare moment of family togetherness with Pa Malachy (Robert Carlyle) and Ma Angela (Emily Watson).
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I met with Robert Carlyle in London. He had recently returned from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where he had been chewing on human body parts for Antonia Bird’s film, Ravenous. Bobby was very keen to portray Malachy McCourt Snr, Frank’s feckless, alcoholic father, a man who is sadder than he is evil. A man with great dignity - every morning, he gets up, shaves, dresses, puts on a collar and tie, looks for work, doesn’t get it, goes to the pub. He is utterly useless, but the kids never have a bad word to say about him, despite the penury and pain he enforces upon them with his negligence and irresponsibility.
To still make this man sympathetic to an audience was Bobby’s biggest challenge. As he once said, “It would seem to me too obvious to paint the guy as a villain. The way I see it, he’s as much a victim as anyone else - his crime was to get addicted to drink. But to paint Malachy McCourt as the villain of the piece would be to let off very lightly the society that allowed these conditions to exist.”
Our film had the advantage of being financed by two studios, Paramount and Universal, so we had the luxury of moving this mammoth travelling circus around Ireland. Luxury is probably not the best word, because three months of soggy socks and dripping macs meant perpetual flu but, curiously, we got used to it. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with someone from the crew during the three months shooting without them blowing their nose. Although the story is harrowing and bleak at times, Frank’s book is full of humour, too, and I tried at all times to lighten up situations which, on the surface, might appear grim.
We started to shoot with the various scenes in Leamy’s National School, actually filmed in the empty St Kevin’s School in Dublin. Frank McCourt (the real one) visited the set and watched from a corner. Joe Breen, playing young Frank, eyed with some suspicion the white-haired man standing unassumingly at the side of the classroom. I said to Joe, “Do you know who this gentleman is?” and Joe answered, “Yes, me when I’m older”.
Director Alan Parker on location in rain-sodden Limerick. “I don’t think I ever had a conversation with someone from the crew during the three months shooting without them blowing their nose,” he says.
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Our final two weeks were spent filming on a purpose-built set in the centre of Dublin. As I mentioned before, the narrow slum-alleys, ‘the lanes’ of Frank’s memoir, have fast disappeared in affluent Ireland, necessitating the building of our ‘Roden Lane’. I think the film-makers of my generation have relished the fact that we took filming back into the streets and away from the studios, but for control and sheer pleasure of film-making, for a director, there’s nothing like a controlled studio set. It’s a joy being able to concentrate on the scene at hand instead of battling, as we usually do, the unrelenting demands of daily life in a real city. The Roden Lane set housed a number of interior sets and work here was probably the most enjoyable for the crew. Filming wrapped on December 22 [1998], having taken 75 shooting days to complete.
As I said earlier, adapting any famous literary work is a daunting experience, because every reader of Frank’s memoir has their own movie locked away inside their head. For those of you who haven’t read the book, I hope you enjoy the film afresh. For those of you who have, I hope the images in the film coincide with some of your own.
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