Off Screen - THE MIGHTY QUINNS

This year’s Galway Film Fleadh was something of a Quinn spectacular. The closing film at the Town Hall theatre on Sunday, This Is My Father, was nothing if not a family affair. It was written and directed by Paul Quinn, filmed by his brother Declan, stars their brother Aidan and also features their sister Marian.

All four, plus their parents (who were flown in specially), were present for the screening, two days before, of Fergus Tighe’s documentary Three Brothers, about the family and the making of This is My Father. It doesn’t stop there, either – Tighe co-wrote Jimmy Smallhorn’s film 2by4, also shown in Galway, which Declan Quinn also shot, and which won him the Cinematography award at this year’s Sundance Festival.

The Quinns are a pretty charming bunch: blue-eyed and handsome. Lots of talent and, as far as one can judge, very little bullshit. Brought up between Chicago and Birr, Co. Offaly, they have always kept close connections with Ireland.

Aidan worked in the theatre in Dublin before moving back to the States and establishing himself as one of Hollywood’s most reliable screen actors. Declan worked with director Barry Devlin on the early U2 videos, and on Devlin’s film All Things Bright And Beautiful before going on to shoot videos for REM and the Smashing Pumpkins and films like The Kama Sutra and Leaving Las Vegas. He is about to start work on Joel Schumacher’s next film Flawless, which stars Robert DeNiro.

When I caught up with him in Jury’s Hotel on Friday, after the screening of Three Brothers, Aidan Quinn was bemoaning the fact that he hasn’t yet lost the weight he gained to play Kieran in This Is My Father, which was filmed in Ireland last summer.

“Paul had me gain about two stone and I haven’t lost it since,” he explained. “I’ve only lost about five pounds of it. I had lots of Irish breakfasts and big fries and Guinness. I just ate a lot more generally. I quit smoking cigarettes before we started on the film and that helped. I had already put on about half a stone. Now I have to lose about a stone.”

The film stars an understated James Caan as an Irish-American high school teacher who comes to Ireland to uncover his father’s identity. Most of the story is told in flashbacks to 1930s Ireland. Quinn and Moya Farrelly play Caan’s father and mother, a young couple whose romance was thwarted by the stifling social and religious codes of the day.

Quinn does indeed look beefier and rougher (in other words, more Irish) he did in Desperately Seeking Susan or Legends Of The Fall or Michael Collins. But he should be proud of his sensitive performance. His Kieran is entirely convincing: a big lug with a big heart, a victim of fate who meets a tragic end, but who is memorable for his decency and dignity.

“Yeah, it was very important that he should have his dignity, and it was a fine line to walk,” he says. “Even though he is a tragic figure, I wanted him to have his own strength of character, and be able to stand up to people who made fun of him and little things like that.”

This Is My Father is a peculiar film. Beautiful to look at, epic in scope, in one sense it’s like an update of all those sky-filled, cottage-riddled “Oirish” films from The Quiet Man to Ryan’s Daughter. But although it contains every cliché in the stage Irish canon, it somehow transcends them. While you groan at the sight of Kieran bringing his girl, Fiona, to a dance in a donkey and cart, or his fisticuffs with two red-haired gombeens in the hall, or the stereotypical fire and brimstone priests, you can’t help being genuinely affected by the fate of the couple.

Although the character of the aging, now-settled traveller fortune-teller, who narrates the flashback sequences, is guaranteed to set your teeth grinding, Colm Meany’s turn as her camp, money-grabbing son is a gem. And there is a determined effort, too, to incorporate modern Ireland, in the romance between James Caan’s nephew and an exuberant local teenager.

The Quinns’ Hollywood connections ensured Caan’s involvement, and their friendship with another Chicago-Irish family, the Cusacks, meant that John Cusack came in for a day to give an upbeat cameo performance as an American airman who, briefly, lands on the beach in Galway where Kieran and Fiona are walking.

In addition to Colm Meany and Stephen Rea (who plays one of the priests), there are performances from a host of Irish actors including Brendan Gleeson and Pat Shortt (predictably brilliant as local guards), Eamonn Kelly, Moira Deady, Gina Moxley and others.

Aidan Quinn says they were well aware of the pitfalls of doing a period piece in Ireland and the danger of descending into cliché.

“We were very conscious of it but I don’t think we would have got Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson, Colm Meany or any of the other Irish actors to do it if there had been any element of paddywhackery going on. I think that was a tribute to the script, and to the fact that we had spent a lot of time here. It’s very different than for Irish-Americans who have never spent time in Ireland; they don’t know how things are or how things work. I think you have to live in a place, in a way.”

Meanwhile, the Irish international connections continue to weave themselves into healthy, spaghetti-style knots. Aidan Quinn stars in Neil Jordan’s next film, which is set in New Orleans and also stars Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr.

“I play Annette’s husband,” he says. “It’s a horror movie but a very intelligent one. Stephen Rea is in it as well.”

The screening of This Is My Father in Galway was the first step towards finding a distributor for the film. Meanwhile, the Quinns hope to return to Ireland next year, when Marion plans to shoot another Irish story, this time a modern romance set in Dublin.

“I’d make a film here every year if I could,” says her brother.