Analysis: Pat Collins' film of McGahern's That They May Face The Rising Sun shows the importance of landscape and place in shaping people's lives
Published in 2002, John McGahern's novel That They May Face The Rising Sun could be described as slow and contemplative. Set in a rural landscape, it portrays the lives of a small West of Ireland community, living around a lake in Leitrim. A year turns and with the passing of the seasons, we get snapshots and vignettes of the characters' mostly quiet lives.
Adapting a book where very little happens for an on-screen experience is a tricky business, even when a seasoned filmmaker like Pat Collins is working with a strong cast and accomplished cinematographer Richard Kendrick. On my way to a preview screening, I was thinking of the rich language and descriptive passages that make this elegiac novel so absorbing and wondered how it would translate to screen.
Trailer for That They May Face the Rising Sun
The device that screenwriters Eamon Little and Collins use is to make the main character Joe Rutledge a writer. We find Joe sitting in his house by the lake, as McGahern did, writing with a ballpoint pen on paper. As the writer reads back over his work, the scene changes to exterior shots of gorgeous vistas where Ruth McCabe's character, Mary Murphy is sitting in a field looking wistful. Occasionally, we see people walking up and down leafy lanes. The film is of a time which is not just pre-mobile phones, but also pre-landlines. Visiting houses or going to Mass were often the only way people obtained local news.
At the film's heart are Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate Rutledge (Anna Bederke), a good-looking, thoughtful couple. They provide the many callers to their home with a warm welcome, cups of tea, an occasional drop of the hard stuff, ham sandwiches, cigarettes and even a Sunday roast. The visitors are mostly lonely bachelors for whom Joe and Kate lend a listening ear or a helping hand. Conversations are sometimes contentious, and there's the occasional fallout, but the couple generally maintain an atmosphere of goodwill and kindness. The stunning, sweeping landscapes were filmed in Clonbur, Co Galway.
As a director, Collins is known for his quiet, cinematic and evocative film making including Tim Robinson: Connemara (2011), Silence (2012) and Song of Granite (2017). The character of Joe here strongly reflects the life of the McGahern we meet in Collins' documentary, John McGahern: A Private World. Made shortly before he died, this documentary sees the author giving us insights into his writing process.
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McGahern introduces us to family and neighbours through stories and photos, some taken by his wife Madeline. He explains that the characters in That They May Face The Rising Sun were occasionally loosely based on real people. "Most of the characters began as a portrait, but like other characters, they were added to and changed."
As in the book, the theme of emigration and return in the film is strong. Kate and Joe have decisions to make around returning to London or staying put. The couple have been living by the lake for five years. Joe is from the area but artist and former gallery curator Kate is not. Their lives in the West of Ireland are quiet and simple, nothing is rushed. Collins directs in a similarly unhurried way, leaving time to dwell on and attend to small details that mirror the book and make his adaptation a fitting version of one of McGahern's finest novels.
The supporting cast includes many great actors such as Ruth McCabe, Sean McGinley, Phillip Dolan and John Olohan. Brendan Conroy plays the fragile character of Bill Evans, "more predictable than the rain", who arrives up every day to the Rutledges. Evans is described by Kate as a slave on a local farm, simply for the fact that he was born outside of marriage. There's a lovely scene where Joe walks Evans down the lane to the bus and he's also invited for Christmas dinner.
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Lalor Roddy plays Patrick Ryan and has the perfect face and demeanour for the part. At one point, we watch Ryan getting dressed, in his small, sparse, isolated cottage at the side of the hill. It demonstrates well both the loneliness and the need for human interaction, which are still relevant today.
Dancer and folklorist Edwina Guckian, like McGahern, is from Leitrim. She constantly advocates for retaining and claiming back the customs that connected us with nature, the land and one another. In a recent episode of The Tommy Tiernan Show, she talked about the importance of gatherings and the 'tradition of rambling. Guckian sees getting together to celebrate and calling in on people as important, not just as a way of life but for our survival. "It's not really about the news at all, it's about the connection for people", she says.
From The Upcoming, interview with director Pat Collins about That They May Face the Rising Sun
In That They May Face The Rising Sun, the importance of connection at a wedding, meitheal or wake is clear. But it's the small conversations that happen between individuals in a kitchen, a car or a bar that stay with you, long after the credits roll or the book is put back on the shelf. Although certain characters and scenes from the novel don't make it to the screen, the film beautifully captures the mood of McGahern's novel, especially the importance of landscape and place in shaping people's lives and giving them occasional glimpses of the transcendent.
"You know, the rain comes down, the sun shines, grass grows, children grow old and die, that's the holy all of it. We all know it full well, but can't even whisper it." John McGahern from That They May Face The Rising Sun
That They May Face The Rising Sun will be released in cinemas nationwide on April 25th
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