One man's meat

The disturbing Neil Jordan

NEW YORK -- Reports of Catholic outrage over The Butcher Boy's irreverence, in particular the casting of the anathema Sinéad O'Connor as the Blessed Virgin, are, according to a jet-lagged Neil Jordan, unfounded.

"Casting Sinéad wasn't a big deal in Ireland, not at all," he says. "There was no controversy there whatsoever, though there was some here. There was a big thing in the New York Post one day. An indignant story on the cover. There's been an attempt to stir up controversy, which is completely beside the point. The film is not irreverent. Yeah, it's shocking, but it's not irreverent. It's kind of a religious movie, really. But not everyone will see it as that. Some people will see it as offensive. I think people will find the violence disturbing. And because the violence is disturbing, I see that as a sign that it's done right. Some people use violence in movies for titillation. In this case the violence is quite shocking."

People usually find something disturbing in a Neil Jordan movie, if he's doing his job properly. His last film, Michael Collins, about the man who spearheaded the Irish war of independence, offended both those who felt it to be a vindication of the IRA and its terrorist activities and those scandalized by its suggestion that the late Eamon de Valera, former Irish president and nationalist icon, was somehow involved in the title hero's death. For some Jordan fans, however, Michael Collins and his previous film, Interview with the Vampire, were more disturbing because, as big-budget Hollywood productions, they seemed to lack the distinctiveness of a true Jordan film.

"You're totally right," he acknowledges. "With Michael Collins, because it was a historical film, I tried to make it as dispassionate as possible. But I don't see it as a different thing. I just suppose over the last few years I've been lucky enough to make some big movies and some small movies and all with a measure of independence. I don't see them as different, really. But I know they are. In the end, anything that works is satisfying.

"And I think this one works. But we'll see. It works for me. We'll see whether it works for the public. I suppose it's more satisfying to make something that there's no precedent for. You know what I mean? To make a movie like this or like The Crying Game, which kind of has to go into uncharted, stormy areas that movies don't normally go to."

The place this one goes to is the uncharted terrain of a deranged adolescent mind. "The center of the movie was through the character, the tortured consciousness of Francie Brady. And the key to keeping everybody involved is to see the world through his eyes, but also to retain some objectivity, to get that balance.

"I just think he's a beautiful kid who's had too much hostility from his environment. Yet he always copes with tragedy, which is a knack that children and geniuses and mentally-off people sometimes have. The more the world changes around him, the more he wants to restore it to his ideal."

-- PK

---

Back to The Butcher Boy

---