A Conversation with film clips led and moderated by Baltimore Sun
critic Michael Sragow.
Special introduction by Mayor Martin O'Malley
Jim Sheridan is a filmmaking legend. Having started in theater, Jim
has created an extraordinary body of film work, serving as producer,
writer, director, or some combination of those, on films as diverse as
the intensely personal and partially autobiographical In America and
the intensely political Bloody Sunday.
His first film, My Left Foot, featured a young actor, Daniel
Day-Lewis, who went on to win an Oscar, and numerous other awards, for
his legendary portrayal of Irish artist Christy Brown. That started
Sheridan's most famous collaboration with an actor, with Day-Lewis
taking leads in The Boxer and In the Name of the Father, both of which
brought many awards and much praise. Though Day-Lewis might be the
best example, one of the common threads of Sheridan's diverse film
work is his ability to find extraordinary actors and to help them put
powerful performances on the screen. From Brenda Fricker, who also won
an Oscar for My Left Foot, to Sarah and Emma Bolger in In
America, to
Richard Harris in The Field, his actors have consistently won
overwhelming acclaim.
Along the way, Sheridan's unusual generosity of spirit and unerring
eye for talent has helped many filmmakers develop and complete films.
He wrote the mystical Into the West that Mike Newell directed, he has
shared screenwriting work and credit, most notably with Terry George,
and the powerful Bloody Sunday would never have been made without his
producing guidance.
As we've programmed the first six years of the Maryland Film Festival,
it's been hard not to notice Jim Sheridan's unusual impact on diverse
filmgoers. Mayor Martin O'Malley chose Into the West for his Guest
Host screening, and gave a fascinating description of some of the
symbolism in the movie and where it came from in Irish mythology.
Mayor O'Malley also hosted a screening of Bloody Sunday and talked
about the distant power of the Derry protests on a young Irish
American. Governor Ehrlich chose In the Name of the Father, and he and
the First Lady talked movingly about how the movie had crystallized
the issues surrounding false arrest for them. "I fell in love with my
wife over this movie," he said during Q&A. Finally, the great critic,
Terrence Rafferty, chose The Boxer as one of the great overlooked
films for his critic advocacy program.
We are proud to have already screened so much of this great filmmakers
work, and we hope you enjoy this rare chance to celebrate a great
filmmaker .
-- Jed Dietz |
Michael Sragow has been a film critic for publications in Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Boston and Seattle. He has written on movies for The
New Yorker since 1989 and has been a film critic and editor for
Rolling Stone. He came to the Sun in 2001 from Salon.com, where for
two years he wrote a movie column on films and filmmakers. He is also
the editor of the book, Produced and Abandoned: The National Society
of Film Critics Write on the Best Films You've Never Seen.
|
