Adam & Paul (2004)Director: Leonard Abrahamson
Starring: Tom Murphy, Mark O'Halloran
After the mid-semester break we were back with Screens, Images, Ideas. As I mentioned earlier, we're done with the New Hollywood and are now undertaking a slightly more tenuously linked back end of the course. This week we were looking at Irish cinema with Abrahamson's Adam & Paul.
Two junkies, Adam (O'Halloran) and Paul (Murphy), wake up one morning on the beach in an unfamiliar part of Dublin with no memory as to how they got there, or how Paul became glued to the mattress he was sleeping on. The rest of their day is spent trying to get their hands on their next hit of heroin, trying to find the elusive dealer they know only as 'whatshisname'.
Ireland does not have an overly rich cinematic history, as it kind of lives in the shadow of British cinema, and what cinematic reputation it does have tends to come down to two filmmakers; Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and more recently, and less notably, the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin') and Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins and Interview with the Vampire). What Ireland does have, however, is a very rich literary tradition, which has influenced the way people think of their film industry. Irish film criticism tends to focus on storytelling and narrative rather than on direction and visual style.
In trying to explain what Adam & Paul is, director Abrahamson and writer/star Murphy have described the film as 'an inarticulate Pete and Dud in a Joycean day in the life' and 'a smacked out Laurel and Hardy waiting for Godot.' This indicates the influence of Irish literary tradition on the film. Obviously structurally the film is indebted to Joyce's Ulysses as it follows a day in the life of these characters as they wander around Dublin. However, it is Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and the absurdist theatre tradition that it is a part of, that appears to have ad the biggest influence. The day starts with no concept of any time before, and as the story goes on we get the sense that it is a cyclical tale and the day before most likely panned out exactly the same way, as would the day after. The fact that their day is devoted to trying to meet up with this anonymous figure, 'whatshisname', also works as an allusion to Vladimir and Estragon's wait for the equally anonymous Godot. The film also contains smaller allusions to scenes and characters from Beckett's play.
It is not actually until the end credits that you discover which one is Adam and which one is Paul. Throughout the entire film they are always together and thus when they encounter people they are referred to collectively as 'Adam and Paul'. The two characters are so closely intertwined that a couple of the students in my class were actually contemplating whether they were actually the same character and what we were seeing was a portrayal of drug induced schizophrenia. This lack of identity and interchangeability of characters is another technique which is used in the absurdist tradition.
While the two of them can be quite a likable pair, particularly Adam, whenever you start to find yourself becoming comfortable with who these guys are and the life that they lead, Abrahamson offers up something which brings home the harsh reality of the junkie lifestyle (the most challenging scene of this kind is when the two of them hold up a teenage boy with down syndrome because they need some money). In this way Adam & Paul presents a rather balanced portrayal of these two junkies, neither demonising them nor shying away from portraying the darker side of the lifestyle.
British cinema already has it's great heroin film, Danny Boyle's Scottish film Trainspotting. Adam & Paul is a different kind of film, coming from a different perspective. It is not nearly as 'cool' as Boyle's film, though there is something quite endearing but at the same time tragic about it. This is a film that most people are unlikely to come across, but if you do it's worth a look.
After the mid-semester break we were back with Screens, Images, Ideas. As I mentioned earlier, we're done with the New Hollywood and are now undertaking a slightly more tenuously linked back end of the course. This week we were looking at Irish cinema with Abrahamson's Adam & Paul.
Two junkies, Adam (O'Halloran) and Paul (Murphy), wake up one morning on the beach in an unfamiliar part of Dublin with no memory as to how they got there, or how Paul became glued to the mattress he was sleeping on. The rest of their day is spent trying to get their hands on their next hit of heroin, trying to find the elusive dealer they know only as 'whatshisname'.
Ireland does not have an overly rich cinematic history, as it kind of lives in the shadow of British cinema, and what cinematic reputation it does have tends to come down to two filmmakers; Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and more recently, and less notably, the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin') and Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins and Interview with the Vampire). What Ireland does have, however, is a very rich literary tradition, which has influenced the way people think of their film industry. Irish film criticism tends to focus on storytelling and narrative rather than on direction and visual style.
In trying to explain what Adam & Paul is, director Abrahamson and writer/star Murphy have described the film as 'an inarticulate Pete and Dud in a Joycean day in the life' and 'a smacked out Laurel and Hardy waiting for Godot.' This indicates the influence of Irish literary tradition on the film. Obviously structurally the film is indebted to Joyce's Ulysses as it follows a day in the life of these characters as they wander around Dublin. However, it is Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and the absurdist theatre tradition that it is a part of, that appears to have ad the biggest influence. The day starts with no concept of any time before, and as the story goes on we get the sense that it is a cyclical tale and the day before most likely panned out exactly the same way, as would the day after. The fact that their day is devoted to trying to meet up with this anonymous figure, 'whatshisname', also works as an allusion to Vladimir and Estragon's wait for the equally anonymous Godot. The film also contains smaller allusions to scenes and characters from Beckett's play.
It is not actually until the end credits that you discover which one is Adam and which one is Paul. Throughout the entire film they are always together and thus when they encounter people they are referred to collectively as 'Adam and Paul'. The two characters are so closely intertwined that a couple of the students in my class were actually contemplating whether they were actually the same character and what we were seeing was a portrayal of drug induced schizophrenia. This lack of identity and interchangeability of characters is another technique which is used in the absurdist tradition.
While the two of them can be quite a likable pair, particularly Adam, whenever you start to find yourself becoming comfortable with who these guys are and the life that they lead, Abrahamson offers up something which brings home the harsh reality of the junkie lifestyle (the most challenging scene of this kind is when the two of them hold up a teenage boy with down syndrome because they need some money). In this way Adam & Paul presents a rather balanced portrayal of these two junkies, neither demonising them nor shying away from portraying the darker side of the lifestyle.
British cinema already has it's great heroin film, Danny Boyle's Scottish film Trainspotting. Adam & Paul is a different kind of film, coming from a different perspective. It is not nearly as 'cool' as Boyle's film, though there is something quite endearing but at the same time tragic about it. This is a film that most people are unlikely to come across, but if you do it's worth a look.
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