RYAN'S DAUGHTER
UK, 1970, 200 minutes, Colour.
Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard, Christopher Jones, John Mills, Leo Mc Kern.
Directed by David Lean.
Ryan's Daughter was David Lean's first film in five years after Doctor Zhivago. After the complex story and wide location scope of his previous films, he decided to make a simple love story.
While the story is simple, it is presented on a grand scale with magnificently filmed West Ireland coastal scenery for the setting. Many consider the film beautiful but pretentious and long.
Once again Robert Bolt is his screenwriter and the story is Bolt's own story written for his wife, Sarah Miles. It is not a wordy screenplay and relies on the acting, especially the unusual but effective casting of Robert Mitchum, Christopher Jones and John Mills, the Irish scenery and the local ruggedness for its effect. In these the film is successful and as well as the love story, it works in a sub-plot concerning gunrunners during the Troubles.
The film is easily entertaining without being profound and, on the whole, is highly moral. Ryan's Daughter is not as good as Lean's previous films, although the photography is as wonderful as ever.
1. What did the magnificently photographed scenery provide for the moods and atmosphere of the film - sea, beach, cliffs, rocks, storms? Discuss the setting and its relationship to the village people implied in words like: wild, rugged, harsh, tempestuous, lonely, primitive.
2. Our earliest view of Rosie is as she stands at a cliff-top and drops a fancy umbrella over the cliff to the sea, where it is rescued by Fr Hugh and Michael. How symbolic of Rosie 's story is this initial sequence?
3. Explain the character of Rosie: her father's princess, her father the local hero, spoilt, above the other girls, yearning for something better than the village.
4. Why did she marry Charles Shaughnessy? Did she really love him? How much was crush, hero-worship and this yearning for something better than the village?
5. Why did she grow dissatisfied in the marriage? - love without passion as on the wedding night, quiet schoolmasterish home-life, dullness, love, protection, money; she thought that this could not be all.
6. How do you explain the character and influence of Fr Hugh? How hard was he and how hard ought he have been in the village? How much authority did he have? How much humanity and Christian priestliness did he have and show - to Rosie, to Charles, to Michael, to the villagers? Note his disgust after he has rescued Michael from them.
7. Discuss the impact the Major made on Rosie - hie shell-shock, suffering and need of help and its corresponding to her yearning; the passion of his love in the beautiful woods (which never appear in any other scene) contrasting with the dutiful love of the wedding night. Was the taciturn, clipped English tone and tormented acting of Christopher Jones effective? The effect of his standing like the rocks on the hills?
8. How can one explain the Major's suicide?
9. What more could Charles Shaughnessy have done in the situation than hope that the "passion would burn itself out". Audience sympathy for him or for Rosie?
10. What did the background of the Troubles of 1916 add to the story, to the film and to the awareness that this situation was particularly Irish? How did Ryan's talk, bluster, betrayal and cowardice to tell the truth to save his daughter show something of the Irish character?
11. Why was Michael in the film? He showed up Rosie's pride and then her humiliation and humility as she realised she was like him and she kissed him. He showed up the villagers for what they were.
12. The villagers were supposed to be Catholics - discuss this in relation to the Troubles, their attitude towards Michael, their vengeance on Rosie, their hardness and cruelty to Charles and Rosie.
13. Did the film resolve itself well - the discussion scenes between husband and wife, their walk through the village, the doubt that Fr Hugh left with them that they should not separate?
