In his 2007 essay “Cinema, city, and imaginative space: ‘Hip hedonism’ and recent Irish cinema” McLoone outlines how the relative prosperity and optimism of the Celtic Tiger years led a cultural rebirth of Dublin and a re imagining of Ireland’s capital in film as a space of “sexual freedom and exploration” (213). Films like Goldfish Memory (2003) and About Adam (2001) depicted Dublin as being a city that represented “freedom and sexual liberation” (215),where attractive young Irish men and women enjoyed the relaxed morals and prosperity of the new Ireland. However McLoone has criticized the “smug complacency” of these films (216) highlighting their failure to acknowledge the darker side of urban Celtic Tiger Ireland.
One film that undermines the clean cut and optimistic depictions of urban Ireland in the early noughties is David Gleeson’s Cowboys and Angels (2003). Gleeson’s film is rare example of an urban Irish film set outside Dublin. Set in Limerick city during the boom years Cowboys and Angels depicts the friendship between a socially isolated and insecure young man and a gay fashion student, and shows the difficultly faced by young people who are trying to establish their identity in a modern city.
“Not everyone is a winner in Celtic Tiger Ireland but in the films that have attempted to reconfigure the cinematic image of the city in Irish culture, the camera seem to have had time only for the conspicuous winners” (McLoone, 216).
Cowboys and Angels is unique among Celtic Tiger cinema for having a central character who is detached from the optimism and prosperity of those years. The central character Shane cannot be seen as one of the Celtic Tigers “winners”. Isolated from his peers, stuck in a monotonous job and lacking confidence and a good dress sense, Shane is adrift in the faced pace life of the city. While the titular character of About Adam is able to shift his identity to fit in with anyone he encounters Shane is unable to assert any sort of stable sense of self.
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While films like About Adam and Goldfish Memory seem determined to completely re brand Ireland’s cities as modern, trendy urban centers Cowboys and Angels paints a more realist picture of the world of the city. While Vincent and his friends frequent the fashionable city center clubs Shane and his older co-workers patronize older, more traditional pubs. The casting of Michael Legge as the central character is interesting because of the fact that his most famous role at that point was in Angela’s Ashes, another Limerick set film that lingered on a grimmer past image of the city.McLoone has criticized the fact that the “the camera in the hip hedonist movie avoids looking in the conflicted spaces” (215).While Adam and the sisters in About Adam appear confident and connected with the city they inhabit Shane finds himself adrift. Throughout the film Shane is shown to be disconnected from the people and places around him. At work he is out of place among his much older co-workers and made to do menial tasks like making tea. His only meaningful friendship is with a much older co-worker. Not attending college and his general social awkwardness leaves him detached from people his own age. We frequently see him in settings where he is out of place and ill at ease. He is displaced among the trendy decor of the apartment he shares with Vincent and questions why Vincent would want to live with him. He is rejected from the local nightclub and is visibly uncomfortable in the dive bar he attends with Keith. Cowboys and Angels can be seen as being a film about self discovery. The aerial shot of the city at the end of the movie signifies Shane’s newfound sense of belonging.
[Credit: cineplex.com]
Ging has stated that a key characteristic of Celtic Tiger era films is a tendency to depict sexuality as being completely unhampered by prejudices and taboo (194). In About Adam and Goldfish Memory characters sexual lives are completely unhindered. However Cowboys and Angels does differ from these films. It is interesting to note that the film was released exactly a decade after the decriminalization of homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland. While the character of Vincent is comfortable with his sexuality and free to openly express it this is not true of other gay characters in the film. Due to his tough-guy image drug dealer Keith feels compelled to suppress his sexuality. The police inspector that Vincent has a brief sexual encounter with is also shown to be hiding his homosexuality and is easily susceptible to blackmail because of it.“We all pretend to be something we’re not” : Keith in Cowboys and Angels (2003)
Gleeson’s film portrays a far more realistic representation of Ireland’s modern cities than other films of that era. While Cowboys and Angels does show the excitement and energy of a modern Irish city it also shows the disorientation and alienation of life in Celtic Tiger era Ireland. As McLoone points out while “the city might well represent freedom and sexual liberation but it can also signify enslavement, exploitation and vice” (215).
WORKS CITED
Ging, Debbie. Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
McLoone, Martin. “Cinema. city, and imaginative space: ‘Hip Hedonism’ and recent Irish cinema.” Genre and Cinema: Ireland and Transnationalism, edited by Brian McIlroy. Routledge, 2007. pp. 205-216.
Gleeson, David, director. Cowboys and Angels. Wide Eye Films, 2003.
IMAGES
Credit for cover photo to hotflick.net. https://www.google.ie/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjE0Y_e1_3SAhViB8AKHZqCAJ4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotflick.net%2Fpictures%2Fbig%2F003CAA_Michael_Legge_106.html&psig=AFQjCNG2PgDXT0e7Ws3CwiUr8XpkLZNKkg&ust=1490944631804148. Accessed 31 Jan. 2017.
https://www.google.ie/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiN-4rV2P3SAhWrDsAKHWVABsAQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotflick.net%2Fpictures%2F003CAA_Michael_Legge_077.html&psig=AFQjCNHE_jcGPyVv38H0vdTLqjg34seR9g&ust=1490944874306053. Accessed 31 Jan. 2017.
https://www.google.ie/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiNt_Km2f3SAhWrL8AKHbdJCIwQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cineplex.com%2FMovie%2Fcowboys-and-angels-2000%2FPhotos&psig=AFQjCNHE_jcGPyVv38H0vdTLqjg34seR9g&ust=1490944874306053. Accessed 31 Jan. 2017.
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