Jim Sheridan (1989)
The tendency of reviewers to recommend films featuring terminally ill and/or disabled characters as ‘remarkably unsentimental’ was strongly in evidence in the 1980s. The praise was usually undeserved, even when, as in the case of Rain Man (1988), the promotion of the movie made shrewd play of the supposedly unsentimental treatment. Two films, appearing at the start and the end of the decade, were exceptions: David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot. Lynch’s picture, not unexpectedly, is the more inventive piece of film-making and features a fine lead performance from John Hurt. As a personality, though (as distinct from a moral symbol and an acting opportunity), John Merrick is a limited conception: a sweet nature inside a hideous exterior. In terms of characterisation of the protagonist, My Left Foot, subtitled ‘The Story of Christy Brown’, is the film that really bucked the trend. It did so thanks to a fine screenplay by Jim Sheridan and Shane Connaughton, based on the writer and artist Christy Brown’s autobiography of the same name; and, in Daniel Day Lewis, to a lead actor ready – eager – to go unusually far and deep into character.
Christy Brown was born into a working-class Dublin family in 1932. He was one of twenty-three siblings, nine of whom died in infancy. He was diagnosed shortly after birth with severe cerebral palsy. His parents Bridget and Patrick were determined to raise him at home, along with their many other children, even though Christy was unable to walk or talk. He was spastic in all his limbs except for the lower left leg. With the encouragement of his parents, especially his mother, and, in his adolescence, a regularly visiting social worker, Christy learned to write and draw with his left foot. He quickly matured into a serious artist. His autobiography, published in 1954, was followed by other prose and poetry, and he continued to paint. He died suddenly in 1981.
The film’s narrative moves between present and past. The former seems at first no more than a framing device. Christy attends a charity event to celebrate the publication of his autobiography, at a grand house outside Dublin on a beautiful summer evening. On arrival, he and his mother (Brenda Fricker) meet Mary Carr (Ruth McCabe), the nurse who will be Christy’s ‘handler’ for the next few hours. Mary will push his wheelchair onto the stage once the preceding entertainment, from a group of classical musicians, is over. In the meantime, in a reception room behind the concert area, the pair chat and – a nearly inevitable consequence of Christy’s cussed nature – argue. Mary also starts reading a copy of My Left Foot. Into this framework, Jim Sheridan incorporates extended flashbacks to Christy’s earlier life. These are the guts of the story but the meeting with Mary turns out to be important too. The evening ends, as does the film, with the two of them driving further out into the countryside and drinking champagne together. A closing legend on the screen explains that they married in 1972.
Sheridan’s realisation of the Brown household during Christy’s childhood, with the teeming family crammed into their small home, is very convincing. Hugh O’Conor, as the child Christy, has an intense eccentricity that paves the way for Daniel Day Lewis. Mrs Brown, eloquently played by Brenda Fricker in her role of a lifetime, is the heart of the family: it’s her quiet, utter steadfastness as well as her perennially pregnant state that makes Christy’s mother such a large, enduring presence. Ray McAnally, in one of his last performances, is differently formidable as Christy’s heavy-drinking, more volatile father. The social worker who helped assist Christy’s progress becomes the presumably fictional Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw), a doctor working with cerebral palsy patients to improve their speech and movement. Eileen moves in cultural circles and it’s through her contacts that she arranges both the first public exhibition of Christy’s art work and the later charity event hosted by Lord Castlewelland (Cyril Cusack).
Eileen is also the woman with whom Christy first falls in love. They go out for dinner with her friend Peter (Adrian Dunbar) and others after Christy’s exhibition opens at Peter’s gallery. Christy is, in both senses of the word, intoxicated until Eileen takes the opportunity to announce her engagement to Peter. Christy, in his distorted, effortful speech, articulates the word ‘Congratulations’ – as he makes his way from the first to the last of the five syllables, his voice is increasingly anguished and vengeful. He then says, ‘I’m glad you taught me to speak so I could say that, Eileen’, before beating his head repeatedly on the restaurant table. This scene is the culmination of My Left Foot‘s near subversiveness in its treatment of a disabled central figure. Christy’s behaviour comes as a shock not only to the cultured Dubliners who’ve virtually adopted him as an expression of their avant-garde broad-mindedness but also to audiences with a built-in predisposition to feel essentially sorry for disabled characters. You do still feel sorry for Christy here: but you’re aware too that he’s behaving badly on purpose, aware that he’ll create a bigger impact – and make it harder for his companions to object to his anti-social performance – because of how he physically is.
Although the film is far from biographically accurate, Christy Brown really did marry a woman called Mary Carr in 1972 but she was neither a nurse nor Irish nor, it seems, good for Christy. According to Wikipedia, Carr was English, Brown met her at a party in London and they started an affair. This led to his ending a relationship of several years with an American woman called Beth Moore (who doesn’t feature in the film). Also according to Wikipedia:
‘Brown’s health deteriorated after marrying Carr. He became mainly a recluse in his last years, which is thought to be a direct result of Carr’s influence and perhaps abusive nature. … Brown died at the age of 49 after choking during a lamb chop dinner. His body was found to have significant bruising, which led many to believe that Carr had physically abused him. …’
Playing fast and loose with the facts of Christy Brown’s biography isn’t a problem to the extent that Jim Sheridan’s clear primary purpose is to celebrate an extraordinary, heroic life. It’s surprising, nevertheless, that Sheridan doesn’t acknowledge how freely he and Shane Connaughton have adapted the true story and, more particularly, that he retains the name Mary Carr.
This is one reason why, revisiting My Left Foot, I found it less impressive than I did when seeing it (twice) at the time of and shortly after its original release. The film is well structured and paced. The main strength of Jack Conroy’s cinematography is in how imaginatively it conveys the cramped spaces of the Browns’ home; there’s also a vivid Halloween sequence during Christy’s childhood – scary masks and fireworks in the night sky, seen from the little boy’s dazzled point of view. Some of the other illustrations of robust community are more obvious than I’d remembered, particularly a punch-up that breaks out at the wake for Christy’s father. I never liked Fiona Shaw as Eileen: it’s the actress, as much as the character she’s playing, who seems to be bidding for attention. Ruth McCabe is likeable as Mary and there’s a spark between her and Daniel Day Lewis. It makes emotional sense too that she has the look of a younger version of Christy’s mother but the scenes featuring Mary become a little too drawn out and repetitive. (Probably just me but she also looked to be reading Christy’s book backwards.) Elmer Bernstein’s score is busy and too conventionally Hollywood for the material.
Daniel Day Lewis’s performance is admirable as a technical achievement; what makes it exceptional is its daring wit. The tones he gets into Christy’s torturous voice give depth, bite and wonderful humour to his persistent sarcasm. Day Lewis’s dark-bearded physicality has an almost satyr-like quality – it’s an expression of the strength of Christy Brown’s appetite for, and determination to have his fill of, a life he seemed fated to be cut off from. Day Lewis’s much vaunted commitment to his art has sometimes raised suspicions that he makes too much of immersive research and preparation for a role. With his best work, however, you can only feel grateful for this – and to him. His portrait of Christy Brown remains my favourite of all his performances.
13 September 2018
