Before turning his mind to 9/11 with this year's well-made but flawed United 93, British writer director Paul Greengrass attempted what, to me at least, seems a much braver feat.
Bloody Sunday, released in 2002 and now widely available on DVD, was an attempt to lay one particular ghost (TO REST) that looms large between British and Irish culture. In the words of executive producer Jim Sheridan "Bloody Sunday is a story the Irish can't forget and it's a story the British don't want to remember."
On January 30, 1972, during a march organized by Member of Parliament (MP) and civil rights activist Ivan Cooper the British army opened fire upon the crowds killing 13 demonstrators. The main point of the march through the town of Derry, Northern Ireland, was to protest the British Government's policy in Northern Ireland of mass internment without trial.
"Terrorism prevention" bills (particularly the Special Powers Act) had given the police sweeping powers of arrest and detention; these were used almost exclusively against the working-class Catholic population. At the time, there was also a blanket ban against marches and demonstrations --a hard-line that the January 30 event intended to defy. The army was on high alert, and, according to Greengrass's film, determined to teach the protestors a lesson.
Although the troop commanders insisted that they were fired upon first, the fact that the army sustained no casualties was a red flag even to British journalists used to heavy-handed policies in Northern Ireland. A tribunal held by Chief Justice Lord Widgery, however, exonerated British troops from all wrongdoing, a conclusion that further entrenched the already deep divisions.
While time successfully buried the whole episode in Britain, oral and written accounts lived on among the people of Derry. It's these stories, originally presented in the book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday: The Truth by Don Mullan, that form the backbone of Greengrass's Irish-British co-production. To emphasize the commemorative nature of the film, Bloody Sunday was shown simultaneously on British and Irish television while being theatrically premiered in a movie theatre in London.
From its first scenes which intercut between the press conferences of opposing camps --the British military, and the march's planning committee-- a frenetic, documentary-style tone is set. Greengrass uses a hand-held camera throughout and eschews such filmmaking devices as tracks, dollies and cranes; he doesn't even light interior scenes.
Actor James Nesbitt, who plays Ivan Cooper, later reported that those working on the film were so wrapped up in the reality of the situation that cast members were never sure when they were being filmed. The main channel of the narrative follows the MP's hectic life as he liaises with the other march organizers, fields questions from constituents, prevents flare-ups between the police and local youth, and pleads with shady IRA men to keep out of the event.
Meanwhile, at brigade headquarters, Major General Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith) applies subtle, and not so subtle, pressure on Brigadier Maclellan (Nicholas Farrell) to be tough with the demonstrators. Arrests are expected, Maclellan is told, and if fired upon the army must respond.
Photographs of "ringleaders" are distributed among psyched-up soldiers. They are expected to "bag" them all. The troops are already fed up with being shouted at, spat at and generally abused by youth who want them out of their country. The tough talk coming from above falls on eager ears.
The atmosphere of barely suppressed panic and anger is sustained by the jerky, roving camera. Through the use of army veterans, rather than actors, in the non-lead roles we get a sense of twitchy confusion as the military prepares to deal with civil strife. They know they have to hit the "yobbos" and "hooligans" hard. Other roles are played by non-actors; Don Mullan, co-producer as well as author of the source book, plays a Bogside priest.
Some of the young men, incensed that the army has barricaded part of the original march route, begin to hurl insults and stones. The order is received to fire rubber bullets, then, as fear and confusion mounts, to hit the "terrorists" with live ammunition.
The scenes that follow are hard to watch. The crack of gunfire is followed by individuals crumpling suddenly to the ground. Most who are hit are running away. Some, like one of Ivan Cooper's employees, are trying to help the wounded.
The deliberate lack of Hollywood gloss makes these scenes all the more traumatic. The film ends with another press conference, already famous through news clips of the time, in which a shocked Cooper sends a message to the British government that they have "given the IRA the biggest victory it will ever have." Cooper predicted, rightly as it turned out, that the actions of the army would "reap a whirlwind."
The achievement of the film Bloody Sunday is to lay before the British and Irish public the hitherto suppressed version of the January 30 story. Throughout the film, the army --like much of the British public then and since-- fails to distinguish between the IRA, and angry, disenfranchised youths. They use a bewildering variety of terms --"thugs . . . yobbos . . . hooligans . . . troublemakers"-- to dehumanize the protestors and homogenize all Irish Catholic protestors into potential terrorists.
When reports come back to an army commander of dead "terrorists," the officer asks each time whether they have found weapons on the body. He seems genuinely disappointed, surprised even, when the answers keep coming back in the negative.
While a vital piece of validation for the people of Northern Ireland in general, and Derry in particular, Greengrass's film met with a mixed response in Britain. A rival television drama was even shown sometime afterwards giving a more pro-British army point of view. All cultures, it seems, have an inbuilt resistance to accepting the possibility that "we" may not be the good guys after all.
The film Bloody Sunday was created to redress the well-entrenched imbalance of the Widgery Tribunal and British Government version of the time. The film is a well overdue catharsis for an event very little talked about in Britain. The Saville Inquiry set up by the British Government in 1998 to revisit these events ran into controversy, ostensibly because of its cost; it is still expected to give a final report in 2007.
In the meantime, there are crucial lessons to be learned from the movie Bloody Sunday regarding the universal necessity for civil rights, the presumption of innocence, the evils of internment without trial, and above all, the panic which is inevitable in any military stand which runs contrary to these principles.
Paul Butler is a St. John's-based author. His most recent novel is NaGeira (Flanker Press). His website is www.paulbutlernovelist.com
for internet marketing, web site design, development, promotion, and maintenance.
