New view of Irish icon Maureen O'Hara

MONTREAL ? Ruth Barton is reputed to be among the pre-eminent authorities on Irish cinema. She is the author of opuses on Irish film and TV, including one on filmmaker Jim Sheridan and Acting Irish in Hollywood. Head of the department of film studies at Trinity College Dublin, she is the visiting scholar at Concordia?s School of Canadian Irish Studies for this fall semester.

But don?t let the pedigree intimidate you. Barton also has a playful side. She will be delivering a lecture, illustrated with film clips, Friday, Nov. 9 at Concordia on Irish actress Maureen O?Hara. ?The lecture is meant to be entertaining and at least somewhat informative,? Barton cracks.

Barton will seek to prove that ?pirate queen? O?Hara may actually be a feminist icon. Which might seem like a stretch for those who know O?Hara best as the kindly mother of Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street, or perhaps as the love interest of John Wayne in The Quiet Man ? O?Hara?s favourite of her films.

The lecture will also serve as a benefit to raise funds for a scholarship at the School of Canadian Irish Studies in memory of Patrick Vallely, a Montreal filmmaker and one of the founders of the Irish film society Cine Gael, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.

?I think most people of a certain age remember O?Hara as the feisty Irish colleen in The Quiet Man, but in her day her big films were really that whole slew of swashbucklers (The Black Swan, Sinbad the Sailor et al.) that she did. Those films were what her reputation was based on,? the Dublin-born Barton says.

?She played tough characters, sometimes cross-dressing. In one, she is a pirate queen, the captain of a ship; she is a fighter. Yet she is still quite elegant and stunning.?

And thus perhaps a feminist icon, according to Barton.

?My point is that there have been actresses like Bette Davis who, because of the strong characters they played, were considered feminist icons. But Maureen O?Hara never was, possibly because she seemed so glamorous.?

O?Hara, now 92 and living in both the U.S. and Ireland, hasn?t done much acting since the early 1990s. One of her last roles was in the 1991 romantic comedy Only the Lonely ? also one of John Candy?s last. He died in 1994.

Barton is teaching two courses at Concordia: Gender and Irish Cinema and Cinema of the Celtic Tiger. The latter course is in reference to the boom of Irish cinema in which directors like Sheridan (In the Name of the Father, My Left Foot) and Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) flourished.

?Now I?m trying to catch up on Canadian films,? Barton says. ?So few ? other than those of David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan and Sarah Polley ? travel to us.?

Ruth Barton?s lecture on Maureen O?Hara takes place Friday, Nov. 9?at 7:15 p.m. in Room H-1070 of Concordia?s Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. A $10 donation is suggested. Proceeds will go to establish a scholarship at Concordia?s School of Canadian Irish Studies in memory of Patrick Vallely.

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Three years ago, Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed a fictional tale of a plot by Jewish-American soldiers to infiltrate and strike back at the Nazis during the Second World War. The film was called Inglourious Basterds.

Well, back off, Quentin. Time to meet The Real Inglorious Bastards, Thursday, Nov. 8?at 9 p.m. on the History Channel. Toronto director Min Sook Lee has crafted a fascinating documentary about two American Jews who were parachuted into the Austrian Alps, behind enemy lines, to create havoc against the Nazis.

Orchestrated by the U.S.?s Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Operation Greenup, as it was called, was almost a suicide mission.

Hans Wijnberg and Fred Mayer were keen to exact revenge on the Nazis, even though their early training was not exactly of the highest calibre.

Nonetheless, they successfully parachuted ? despite the fact that Mayer had never jumped from a plane before ? into Austria, where they hooked up with Franz Weber, a Wehrmacht deserter. Their behind-the-lines work led to the destruction of 26 trains along the supply route from Germany to Italy.

Mayer was eventually captured by the Nazis. They suspected he was Jewish, but dismissed the idea after they tortured him, saying ?a Jew couldn?t take that kind of punishment.? He managed to bluff his way out of captivity by promising immunity to the Nazi commander in the Tyrol region of Austria when the war ended.

Mayer, now 91, recently received a citation from the OSS for his efforts. Wijnberg died 10 years ago.

It?s a remarkable story. ?And once again life proves to be so much more fantastical than fiction ? perhaps even more than Quentin Tarantino fiction,? opines director Min Sook, who had previously done the doc The Real MASH.

Min Sook thinks Mayer and Wijnberg?s mission was almost doomed to fail: ?They were making it up as they were going along. They didn?t have much training. They were essentially two guys from Brooklyn, European refugees whose families had been destroyed. They just wanted revenge. But they believed against all hope that they would succeed, and that?s half the battle.

?But what really resonated for me here was that Fred did have the opportunity for revenge when the war ended and his former Nazi torturer begged him not to kill him. And right at the moment, Fred told him: ?What do you think I am? A Nazi?? That to me is one of the core moral lessons of this story.?

The Real Inglorious Bastards airs Thursday, Nov. 8?at 9 p.m. on the History Channel.

bbrownstein@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @billbrownstein

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Concordia+presents+view+Irish+icon+Maureen/7512737/story.html

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