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When the Irish film director and screenwriter Neil Jordan’s biopic of Michael Collins was released in 1996, it unleashed criticism from historians and politicians who contested its depiction of the rebel leader and Ireland’s war of independence.
Some disputed Liam Neeson’s portrayal of the doomed, charismatic guerrilla chief and his romance with a character played by Julia Roberts. Others cited inaccuracies in the film’s depiction of the 1919-21 conflict with Britain and ensuing Irish civil war.
However, nearly 30 years on, Jordan has raised unexpected questions about a defence of his film by Ireland’s former taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald. According to Jordan, the Irish statesman said he expected payment from Warner Bros, the film’s producers, for an article in which he lauded the biopic.
“By any standards, the film is a triumph, and for many Irish people viewing it, is likely to prove a deeply moving experience,” Fitzgerald wrote in the Irish Times on 14 September 1996. The op-ed said the film strayed from historic fidelity for dramatic purpose but was an accurate depiction of the idealism, courage, heroism and violence of the period. “Neil Jordan merits our applause, and our gratitude.”
Jordan has now shone a fresh light on the endorsement, saying FitzGerald wrote it after meeting a Warner Bros executive and that he said he expected payment.
In a forthcoming memoir, Jordan recounts encountering the former prime minister and thanking him for the article. “That reminds me, I must send in an invoice, I still haven’t been paid,” FitzGerald said, according to Jordan.
“By the Irish Times?” Jordan asked. “No,” FitzGerald allegedly replied, “by Warner Bros.”
The claim puts a question mark over why FitzGerald, who died aged 85 in 2011, wrote the article. During his time in power, and after, he had a reputation for integrity. “His strength lay in his puritanical propriety,” said the Guardian’s obituary.
“I was shocked,” Jordan told the Guardian in a wide-ranging interview. “I don’t want to besmirch the man’s reputation but that conversation is exactly as it happened.” The memoir, titled Amnesiac, does not elaborate on the reported conversation. “I didn’t want to make any editorial comment,” Jordan said.
Many people lauded the biopic. It won two awards at the Venice film festival, including the coveted Golden Lion, broke box office records in Ireland and earned glowing reviews in the US.
In his article FitzGerald, author of the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement, said he was not without bias. He had led Fine Gael, the party descended from Collins’s side in the civil war, and admired Collins, who was shot dead in 1922.
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He faulted some of the film’s artistic licence and said it was “unfair” to Éamon de Valera, who led the opposing side in the civil war. But the film “scored highly” on authenticity, dramatic intensity, acting and integrity, the former taoiseach wrote. The article made no mention of any Hollywood payment.
Anticipating debate over historical accuracy, the late Julian Senior, the head of Warner Bros in Europe at that time, showed the film to journalists and to FitzGerald, Jordan said. Senior died in January. A Warner Bros spokesperson said the studio could not confirm or deny any payment: “There is no way to verify this given the length of time that has passed.”
Mark FitzGerald, the former taoiseach’s son, said his father embodied probity and would not have taken an undisclosed payment. “There is no conceivable way he would have done such a thing. There wasn’t a pound note in his head. He had a humility about his personal self. The public and private man were very similar.”
FitzGerald was a full-time carer for his wife in 1996 and 1997 and seldom left the family’s Dublin home, his son said. “My father discussed everything with me. I was very involved in his finances and there was no such payment.”
If the encounter with Jordan happened, the retired politician must have been making a joke, said Mark. “I’m not saying he’s imagining the story. But it would have been a jocose remark, certainly not serious. I could see his humour, and Neil Jordan not really knowing him or understanding that.”
The former taoiseach was driven by a sense of unfinished work from the 1916 Easter Rising in which Collins fought, his son said. “He was called after Michael Collins. He was Garret Michael FitzGerald.”