Michael Collins (1996)
Overview
Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.
Cast
Liam Neeson
Michael Collins
Aidan Quinn
Harry Roland
Stephen Rea
Ned Broy
Alan Rickman
Eamon de Valera
Julia Roberts
Kitty Kiernan
Ian Hart
Joe O'Reilly
Brendan Gleeson
Liam Tobin
Stuart Graham
Tom Cullen
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Like many such epics, _Michael Collins_ is melodramatic and partial, about a past all too present. But much of the critical hostility it received/s is for offending popular pieties, imperial or republican, no less prejudiced.
Jordan wrestled with historiography and moral complexity in writing his screenplay. He understood that any historical account involves selection and even distortion, not least to persuade producers and sell tickets.
Ultimately, however, the period and place are too complex for Jordan to explain or Collins to contain: its violence is too roughly contextualized, its framing too hagiographical, and its characterization of De Valera too broad.
