"Bloody Sunday:-Paul Greengrass-2002
Normally I have seen the films I comment on multiple times; this was my first time viewing "Bloody Sunday."
For those of you not familiar with this film, it is a careful documentary style reconstruction of the events surrounding the Civil Rights march in Londonderry on Sunday, January 30Th 1972. It was made for Granada television, but it was shown at several film festivals prior to its television Premier. It was based on the book "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday" by Don Mullan. Mullan was a co-producer of the film, and he had a small part as a priest. Thirteen people were killed that day, and one died several months later. Paul Greengrass directed the film, and its success propelled him to a directing job on the Jason Bourne films.
The background is that Mullan's book interested Greengrass, and it was also instrumental in convincing the British government to open a second inquiry into the shootings and deaths on Bloody Sunday. This inquiry took 10 years and 195 million pounds. Its conclusions in 2010 validate the film's storytelling. The government in Northern Ireland, controlled by Protestants, had recently banned all protest marches indefinitely. The civil rights groups had determined that they must march to keep alive the ideal of peaceful non-violent protest. They had brokered an agreement with the IRA to keep out of the protest. The British Army had plenty of intelligence inside the local communities, and they also had the resources of the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) to provide more information. The British were aware of the parade timing, route, and leadership all of which had been widely publicized. They also knew many IRA members and sympathizers. and they circulated their pictures among the British units. The British had a plan to snatch these leaders by stopping the parade and then having the paratroop soldiers (!st Paratroop Regiment) grab up protesters. They were prepared to use rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons to achieve their objective.
The movie devotes considerable time to the preparations on both sides. As you might expect, there is a lot of confusion on both sides. There were breakdowns in communications and changes in plans. The film focuses one one key leader on each side. On the protesters'side we follow Ivan Cooper (Jimmy Nesbit), the local MP. He was a Protestant, dating a Catholic girl, representing a mostly Catholic district. We see him talking to constituents, working with protest leaders, cajoling IRA leaders to keep their agreement, apologizing to his girlfriend for last nights absence, and dealing with the press. He has to make two key decisions early on, First should the protest follow its original route. He decided to change the route and not to proceed downtown. The parade would take a right turn and assemble for a rally short of the town center. The second decision was whether or not to cancel the march. There were thousands of British troops covering the route, and the deployment of the paratroopers added an additional risk because they had been involved in violent incidents very recently Cooper believed that by changing the route the possibility of violence was lowered, and if they called off the protest it would end any hope of major change by non-violent means. The protests were organized around two major issues:1) equal right for Catholics, and 2) freeing the hundreds of internees. They were people arrested during previous protests and held often without charges and/or trials.
On the British side the key player is Major General Ford the commander of all British troops. He was supposed to be there only as an observer. He became more involved, and it was he who gave the early official interpretation of the day's events. His statement was that the British soldiers were reacting to violent provocations by the protesters. Shades of the Attorney General and the Muller Report. Years later official transcripts of a meeting between PM Heath and Lord Chief Justice Widgery who headed the initial public inquiry revealed that Heath told the chief justice that they were not only fighting a military war but that they were fighting a propaganda war as well.
The film was shot entirely with hand held cameras. Ivan Strassberg does a masterful job; he gives us the significant action, but also the confusion. There was a working script, but actors improvised within this framework. We become eye and ear witnesses to history. James Nesbit does a masterful job as Ivan Cooper.
I found the scenes in the hospital and the post event press conference particularly moving. The main scenes involve thousands of extras. The soldiers were mainly former British soldiers. The protesters were from Dublin and Derry, some of the protesters were relatives of the deceased. Dan Mullan of course was a 15 year old eyewitness, and his daughter a rising 15 is in the film.
Two interesting factoids: 1) a movie theater in Derry was showing this double feature: "The Magnificent Seven" and "Sunday,Bloody Sunday"; 2) the version of U2's "Sunday, Bloody, Sunday" is from a live recording that Paul Greengrass made in 1983.
Highly recommended; next up "Amalie."
