“The Irish in Film,” the free movie series sponsored by the Irish Studies Committee at Fairfield University, opens on Wednesday, October 5 with four diverse films. Now in its fourth year, the series is part of Fairfield University’s “Arts & Minds” season of cultural and intellectual programs.
The third film on October 19, "The Last September" (1998), is based on the 1929 novel by Elizabeth Bowen, the Anglo-Irish writer who depicts the fatal events of The Troubles in 1920. Directed by Deborah Warner with the screenplay by Irish novelist John Banville, the film is a coming of age story of Lois (Keeley Hawes), niece of the Naylors, Sir Richard (Michael Gambon) and Lady Myra (Maggie Smith), who own a vast estate in County Cork and are members of the powerful Ascendancy ruling class. Lois is courted by Gerald (David Tennant), a young British officer whose garrison is protecting the Naylors against the IRA. At the same time, she is secretly drawn to her former childhood friend Peter Connolly (Gary Lydon), a brutal gunman hiding out on the estate. To add to Lois's confusion, she is influenced by Marda Norton (Fiona Shaw), a sophisticated, somewhat jaded houseguest who eventually rescues Lois from the fate awaiting the isolated, doomed, and, as the saying goes, "more Irish than the Irish" Anglo-Irish Naylors. The film will be introduced by Dr. Nels Pearson, assistant professor of English who teaches Irish Literature and was recently named director of the Program in Irish Studies.
The films will be shown in the Multimedia Room of the DiMenna-Nyselius Library on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 p.m. The films will be introduced by professors who teach in the Irish Studies program. Fairfield University welcomes students as well as the greater community to this free event. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information, please contact Marion White, Irish Studies Committee, at (203) 254-4000, ext. 3021 or e-mail her at mwhite@fairfield.edu.