ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 25, 1996 TAG: 9610250018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: DOUGLAS J. ROWE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Neil Jordan musters a tired laugh when confronted with the criticism his ``Michael Collins'' has received.
That's because he finds it all ``a bit tiring.''
``I don't mean any harm,'' he says, laughing again, this time a bit ruefully.
Before coming here to promote the movie, Jordan got flak from British politicians concerned about sectarian tensions in British-ruled Northern Ireland and from British tabloids suggesting his film gives comfort and support to the current Irish Republican Army.
(Meantime, his movie was deemed best at the Venice Film Festival and Liam Neeson's brio-filled performance as the title role's ``big fella'' nabbed best-actor honors.)
Jordan figures certain segments of the British press don't want any aspect of the Irish experience to be made into films. ``There's nothing I can do about that,'' Jordan says. ``Yeats' poetry was written about the same period. They don't call Yeats an apologist for the IRA, do they? Yeats was a very strong Republican in his day.''
He also thinks that part of the problem between Ireland and England is ``that any attempt to examine certain facts always gives rise to kind of hysterical positions.''
So historical integrity was important to him in making this movie.
The 46-year-old Irish director-screenwriter maintains it's ``a fair representation'' of the period (1916-1922).
``Even very, very conservative historians would say that. They would argue with certain details and things that I've done. But with regard to the broad shape of the movie, of the story, I don't think any could argue it's pejorative or propagandist,'' says Jordan, whose last film was ``Interview With the Vampire.''
His new film presents the short career of the man who led a guerrilla war against the British to create a free Irish republic - and semi-succeeded. It follows his life through his reluctant negotiations with Great Britain, the resulting partition of Ireland, the civil war that in turn stemmed from that division, and his death in an ambush at age 31.
Jordan concedes that while well-done histories should be balanced and comprehensive, films don't lend themselves to those traits.
``Nobody lives their life with the advantage of historic objectivity. The one thing you can do in a dramatic reconstruction. You can show the kind of confusion out of which events arise,'' Jordan says. ``I think you can give a better account of life as lived.''
So Jordan focuses on the emotion, particularly among Collins, his best friend (Aidan Quinn) and the woman they vie for (Julia Roberts) and their moral dilemmas. And, yes, he does take some liberties with the facts, combining three real people into the double agent character played by Stephen Rea.
Long before he made ``Michael Collins,'' Jordan directed films that touched on Irish politics - and touched a raw nerve.
Slings of politicized peevishness were aimed at him after his first movie 14 years ago, ``Angel.'' Released in the United States as ``Danny Boy,'' it's about a young saxophonist who gets sucked into Northern Ireland's sectarian violence. The press over there pilloried Jordan for his apolitical approach to the country's problems.
And the director's 1992 hit ``The Crying Game'' - for which Jordan won an Academy Award for original screenplay - was attacked by some who saw a sympathetic portrayal of the IRA.
In a recent interview, though, Jordan sounds less than totally sympathetic to the modern IRA.
He doubts Collins would be a proponent of terrorism as it's practiced today. Back then, Collins' targets were all British agents, and he demurred on the more radical plans to bomb London and kill civilians or to assassinate Cabinet members. And Jordan maintains Collins would never be involved in the ``war of attrition'' that the Provisional IRA has fought against the British.
Jordan observes that Collins accomplished ``an extraordinary amount'' in his short life.
``The great question you ask is, `Had he lived ?'''
And, you might ask: How did Collins accomplish more in three years than the IRA has in 27?
``I think it's a perfectly good question. It's its own answer, isn't it? I don't think Collins would have ever fought a war he couldn't win.''
The second of five children with a painter-mother and teacher-father, Jordan was born in Sligo on Ireland's northwest coast. He grew up in Dublin and as a child he was allowed one film (which had to be sanctioned by the Catholic church) every two weeks, but he also sneaked out to see secular films - ``risking damnation in the process,'' he once joked.
His family was ``very painterly'' (his two sisters and grandfather as well as his mother were all artists), and he has described their household as intellectual, strict, religious and enlightened.
He began his career as a novelist, and in 1974 he founded the Irish Writers Cooperative. His collection of short stories, ``Night in Tunisia,'' won the 1979 Guardian Fiction Prize. He's published several other works including ``Sunrise With Sea Monster'' last year.
Jordan, who first wrote a script for this film in 1983, says he probably needed to make a few movies before this one, since this was so large in scale. ``Maybe I wouldn't have been equipped to make this,'' says Jordan, whose other movies include ``Mona Lisa,'' ``The Company of Wolves'' and ``We're No Angels.''
``You need a certain kind of security and authority to let a story tell itself. And in many ways, I didn't want to interfere with this story. I didn't want to put my hands all over it,'' he says. ``Some of the movies that I admire most, some of the John Ford movies, some of the Kurosawa movies, they're haven't got personalities bleeding all over them.''
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: "Michael Collins" director Neil Jordan. color.by CNB