A Night with BBC Filmmaker Maurice Fitzpatrick
On Thursday, September 18, the Institute for the Study of Irish Culture welcomed documentary director Maurice Fitzpatrick to campus for a viewing and discussion of his 2013 BBC documentary, “Translations Revisited.”
As the title suggests, Fitzpatrick’s documentary revisits Brian Friel’s 1980 play “Translations,” which explores the beauty and borders of language, the diversity of cultures, and how people transcend differences. The play was performed amid the strife of Derry, Northern Ireland in 1980, and staged once again in 2013 in the same city, which had been transformed by fifteen years of ‘peace.’ Given this unique parallel occurrence, Fitzpatrick looks at the significance of “Translations” and asks whether its message has stood the test of time.
Fitzpatrick provided the context for the making of the film. He and his crew filmed the rehearsals for its 2013 production. He interviewed actors, directors, theater scholars and Derry locals. He was interested in discerning in what ways a performance in 2013 would be different from one in 1980. Although the political situation was far less fraught than in 1980, the play’s themes — a society riven by differences in language and outlook — still resonate. The documentary added another layer of translation, serving as a means to carry across the meaning and import of this play written in the late 1970s.
The event concluded with Fitzpatrick fielding excellent questions from the audience, including one about the percentage of Irish versus English spoken in the film. Fitzpatrick estimates a 70-30 breakdown between Irish and English spoken in films sponsored by RTE/BBC. (Intriguingly, the Irish language doesn’t include terms or modes of address that make it easy to identify the socio-economic class of the speaker.)
A scholar and filmmaker, Fitzpatrick also authored a book titled “The Boys from St. Columb’s,” which he also made into a documentary.