The Banshees of Inisherin

Dai Bando’s Music Room #14: Saint Paddy’s Day / Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?

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By Dai Bando

“It’s an Irish trick that’s true

I can lick the mick that threw

The overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder”

I dislike most of what I call “green beer” St. Paddy’s Day music, but this one is an exception. My dad used to sing “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder” on St. Paddy’s Day and also whenever my mom made her awesome white clam chowder. Coincidentally, the lady who lived across the street was named Mrs. Murphy and my dad had convinced me that the song was written about our neighbor. Why not?

Now, Mrs. Murphy was lovely, but her husband was a different cat altogether. I myself would have gladly thrown my overalls in that old geezer’s chowder. Never did I get even a ‘hello’ from Mr. Murphy, even when hand-delivering his Sunday newspaper.

The Murphy’s only child Margaret was a rare thing, “fine as a beeswing” as Richard Thompson would say. Even in grade school, she was ethereal and somewhat precocious. I remember once Margaret informed me that female kangaroos “have bosoms.” I think I was in 3rd grade and didn’t have the slightest clue what the fuck she was talking about. (I did know what a kangaroo was.)

Margaret died far too young, bless her soul.

Mr. Desautel lived across the street from the Murphys, and that old bastard was so mean, he made Mr. Murphy look like Fred Rodgers. Mr. Desautel once challenged the Ice Cream Man to a fistfight because a few popsicle wrappers had blown onto his lawn. (I did witness Dougie Neederlitz brazenly toss his popsicle wrapper, though I didn’t rat him out.) Mr. Scotti, our ice cream truck driver, would’ve volunteered to throw Mr. Desautel’s overalls into the chowder with Mr. Desautel still wearing them.

“Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder” was written by George L. Geifer way back in 1898. Bing Crosby had a hit with it in 1945. I prefer the Maxwell Sisters performing the song in this short film (above) from the late 1940s.

And speaking of films – here are my Top 10 Irish movies:

Ryan’s Daughter” (1970 David Lean)

– Critics hated it, the cast hated each other. David Lean was so traumatized by the experience, he didn’t make another movie for 15 years. I love every fame, especially the ones featuring the Dingle shore. Maurice Jarre composed the soundtrack which featured the memorable “It Was a Good Time (Rosy’s Theme)”

“In Bruges” (2008 Martin McDonough)

– Great performances from Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, and Ralph Fiennes. McDonagh’s dialogue is raw, often hilarious and sometimes pure poetry.

“I Went Down” (1997 Paddy Breathnach)

– This hilarious road movie was my first taste of actor Brendan Gleeson, who might be my favorite actor in the world.

“The Quiet Man” (1952 John Ford)

– On my first trip to Ireland, a bank teller in Dublin told me I spoke “just like John Wayne.” Though not at all true, this remains the best compliment I’ve ever had.

“The Commitments” (1991 Alan Parker)

– Maybe not the best of Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy books (I loved “The Van”), it is certainly the best film adaptation mainly because of the amazing musical performances by a truly great soul band created for the film.

“The Magdalene Sisters” (2002 Peter Mullen)

– Excellent film on the subject of Catholic Church abuse in Ireland. Be prepared to become very angry.

“In America” (2002 Jim Sheriden)

– Beautiful biographical story of Sheriden’s immigration from Ireland to NY’s Hell’s Kitchen in the sixties. Two sisters age 6 and 11, Emma and Sarah Bolger, acting for the first time, steal the movie. The movie concludes with The Corrs singing “Time Enough for Tears,” one of my favorite Irish songs.

“The Butcher Boy” (1997 Neil Jordan)

An Irish “A Clockwork Orange,” complete with Sinead O’Connor as the Virgin Mary (Sinead sings a great version of the folk song of the title.) Very disturbing.

“Finian’s Rainbow” (1968 Francis Ford Coppolla)

Despite the talents of Fred Astaire, lyricist Yip Harburg, and Francis Ford Coppolla – this thing was a mess. Still, worth it if only for Petula Clark singing, “How are things in Glocca Mora?”

“The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022 Martin McDonough)

 My choice for ‘Best Picture’ in 2022. Outstanding performances from Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

Honorable Mentions:
The Guard, Waking Ned Devine, Once, The Field, The Snapper, The Crying Game, My Left Foot, Cal, In the Name of the Father, Secret of Roan Inish, Philomela, The Van, The Boxer, Hear My Song, The General, Into the West

Banshees of Inisherin wins four Bafta awards – but Colin Farrell is beaten to best actor

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Banshees wins best British film, and director Martin McDonagh explains that though it is Irish-made with Irish cast and crew, it is funded by Film4

By Donald Clarke

Kerry Condon accepts the best supporting actress award for The Banshees of Inisherin during the 2023 Bafta Film Awards in London on Sunday. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images for Bafta

Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin has won four Baftas – British Academy Awards – during a glossy, if occasionally ramshackle, ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Kerry Condon, from Tipperary, and Barry Keoghan, from Dublin, took the prizes for, respectively, best supporting actress and best supporting actor. Banshees also took best British film and best original screenplay.

But, in a surprise, Austin Butler beat Colin Farrell to best actor for his turn as the king of rock ‘n’ roll in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. The biggest winner of the evening was, however, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front. The adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel topped the Bafta charts with seven gongs, including wins in best picture and best director.

The wind looked set fair for Banshees when, in one of the first awards of the evening, Condon shuffled past the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and Angela Bassett to grab her first Bafta. That was a mild surprise.

Oddsmakers were still more taken aback by Keoghan beating out Ke Huy Quan, a huge favourite at the Oscars, for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Condon acknowledged the late Alan Parker, who gave her an early film role in Angela’s Ashes. “I have to thank my family in Ireland,” she said. “They were always at the other end of the phone for me all through the years… And I have to thank my horses and my dogs because they showed me so much love and gave me so much meaning in my life.”

Audiences watching on the delayed TV broadcast did not see the awkward moment when Carey Mulligan was wrongly announced as the winner over Condon. The mistake was quickly corrected, but this was an embarrassing moment for the British Academy. Interviewing Condon backstage, Alison Hammond, co-presenting with Richard E Grant, did not even mention the incident.

Barry Keoghan accepts the best supporting actor award for The Banshees of Inisherin during the 2023 Bafta Film Awards in London on Sunday. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images for Bafta

Keoghan, who received an ecstatic response from the audience, acknowledged his late mother and those from north inner-city Dublin seeking to follow in his footsteps. He noted “the kids dreaming to be something from the area that I came from. This is for youse.”

Most pundits would have seen Farrell as a more likely winner than either of the two supporting players in Banshees. The team will be happy with the unexpected wins, but disappointed they could not convert in best actor and best film.

McDonagh confirmed he was a smooth performer at the lectern with a brace of witty speeches. “Thank you Bafta for this British film award,” he said. “I know every Irish person in the cast and crew were kind of going ‘best what?’ But the wonderful Film4 were a big part of financing this… Thanks to Rosie our stand-in donkey, who is British. She’s from Stoke-on-Trent.”

Colm Bairéad’s delicate An Cailín Ciúin, on a sensational run since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival a year ago, lost out to the all-conquering All Quiet on the Western Front in two categories. Berger’s epic beat the Irish-language film to both best adapted screenplay and best film not in English. An Cailín Ciúin now goes on to compete for best international film at the Academy Awards.

There was Irish success elsewhere. Richard Baneham from Tallaght, already an Oscar winner, was among the team taking the best visual effects prize for Avatar: The Way of Water. He was first on stage to thank the audience in Irish.

Tom Berkeley and Ross White’s An Irish Goodbye, a delightful Northern Irish comedy concerning brothers squabbling after their mother’s death, won best British short and now looks like a decent favourite for an Oscar. “If we forgot to thank our mums there would not be any tea on the table,” Berkeley joked.

There were no surprises in best actress with Cate Blanchett continuing her triumphant run for playing a troubled, mendacious conductor in Todd Field’s much-admired TÁR.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts and their American equivalent, which decides the Oscars, share a significant number of voting members. These results can thus give reliable pointers to the awards that matter most. To this point, best actor was seen as a three-horse race between Farrell, Butler and Brendan Fraser for The Whale.

Notwithstanding McDonagh’s dry remarks about the cross-national nature of The Banshees of Inisherin, the team will have seen Bafta as something of a home event. Farrell does seem to have lost ground to a fast-rising Butler. Oscar watchers will now turn their eyes to the Screen Actors Guild awards next weekend.

If Butler wins there, the game may be up.

BEST FILM: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Malte Grunert.

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM: THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin.

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER: AFTERSUN, Charlotte Wells (Writer/Director)

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Edward Berger, Malte Grunert.

DOCUMENTARY: NAVALNY, Daniel Roher, Diane Becker, Shane Boris, Melanie Miller, Odessa Rae

ANIMATED FILM: GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar, Alex Bulkley.

DIRECTOR: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Edward Berger.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, Martin McDonagh.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell.

LEADING ACTRESS: CATE BLANCHETT, Tár.

LEADING ACTOR: AUSTIN BUTLER, Elvis.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: KERRY CONDON, The Banshees of Inisherin.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: BARRY KEOGHAN, The Banshees of Inisherin.

ORIGINAL SCORE: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Volker Bertelmann.

CASTING: ELVIS, Nikki Barrett, Denise Chamian.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, James Friend.

EDITING: EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, Paul Rogers.

PRODUCTION DESIGN: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Christian M Goldbeck, Ernestine Hipper.

COSTUME DESIGN: ELVIS, Catherine Martin.

MAKE UP & HAIR: ELVIS, Jason Baird, Mark Coulier, Louise Coulston, Shane Thomas.

SOUND: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Lars Ginzel, Frank Kruse, Viktor Prášil, Markus Stemler.

SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS: AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, Richard Baneham, Daniel Barrett, Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon.

BRITISH SHORT ANIMATION: THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX AND THE HORSE, Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy, Cara Speller, Hannah Minghella.

BRITISH SHORT FILM: AN IRISH GOODBYE, Tom Berkeley, Ross White.

EE RISING STAR AWARD: EMMA MACKEY.

Source: Baftas 2023: Banshees of Inisherin wins four awards – but Colin Farrell is beaten to best actor

Movie Review: The Banshees Of Inisherin

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The small Irish island of Inisherin, 1923. Pádraic (Farrell) and Colm (Gleeson) have been friends for as long as anyone can remember. But one day, while civil war rages on the mainland nearby, Colm suddenly announces that the friendship is over. Pádraic is confused and devastated, while Colm starts taking incomprehensibly drastic measures.

How do you break up with a best friend? It’s a good question, tackled brilliantly by Seinfeld way back in its first season. After all, the rules of social disengagement are pretty clear when it comes to sexual relationships, even more so when they involve divorce. But separating from a buddy you just don’t like anymore? When the pair of you live on a small, scantily populated island with only one pub? How do you go about that?

In Martin McDonagh’s world, the answer is: brutally. After resolving to dissolve his friendship with the dependable but dull Pádraic (Colin Farrell), Colm (Brendan Gleeson) bluntly tells his ex-friend he doesn’t want talk to him or drink with him ever again. No explanation given. No attempt made to soften the blow. Of course, if you’re familiar with writer-director McDonagh’s previous film work, from In Bruges to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, such tactlessness should come as no surprise — McDonagh’s scripts are so abrasive, you could use them as sandpaper. So the focus of the film is less on Colm’s decision, and more on Pádraic’s reaction, not to mention the impact it has on his “limited” (another character’s word, not ours) life.

Ironically, for a story about a friendship-wreck, The Banshees Of Inisherin is also a reunion: of McDonagh with the double act that made the hitman antics of In Bruges such a piquant treat. However, Farrell and Gleeson don’t spend nearly as much time on screen together here, for self-evident reasons. It’s a shame, in a small way, but it does add to the pervading sense of wrongness.

Colm is largely inscrutable, despite the occasional revelation of sorts, and the odd flash of kindliness. McDonagh never fully reveals what drives him to the Pádraic-alienating extremes he goes to later in the film, and that makes him the more emotionally distant of the two men.

This is primarily Pádraic’s story; the tale of a good, decent fella who, through an enforced process of self-examination, finds and embraces other, sharper facets to his personality. Farrell is fantastic in the role, delivering one of his best-ever performances. He takes on a kind of sagging anti-charisma, a seeming guilelessness which he initially plays for laughs, but then gradually and convincingly brews into something much darker.

Complementing him perfectly is Kerry Condon as Pádraic’s savvy sister, Siobhan. Her exasperation at her brother’s response to Colm’s ultra-dick move is thoroughly relatable, and you’ll welcome every moment she spends on screen. Siobhan also evokes the most sympathy as a woman who has clearly, desperately outgrown this cliff- edged, wall-scarred speck of an island — a realisation only underlined by the clumsy amorous attentions of Barry Keoghan’s damaged youth, Dominic, a character that sadly gets the shortest narrative shrift of the bunch.

Tenderly scored by Carter Burwell and gorgeously shot by cinematographer Ben Davis — the drama may be intimate, but the backdrop feels epic — The Banshees Of Inisherin is a film whose unhurried pace never drags. It is, we suppose, McDonagh’s gentlest offering yet (and the fact that his gentlest film involves acts of mutilation says a lot about his other work). That said, you could also argue it is his first war movie. And not just because it is set during the Irish Civil War of 1922-23, which is heard raging just a few miles across the water. After all, Colm and Pádraic’s split is really just that war in microcosm. The causes are obscure and confusing, the emerging conflict escalates fast, the previously close participants employ tactics that would have once been unthinkable. And the after-effects will be felt for years to come.

McDonagh has never been one for neat resolutions, so it’s not giving anything away to say that we’re denied one here, too. This is no bromantic-comedy, and you really shouldn’t be hoping for any feel-good vibes (though there are plenty of laughs, if your humour verges on the dark side). But the film is engrossing and beautifully mounted, and is sure to not disappoint anyone who’s enjoyed McDonagh’s previous rough rides.

Another great feel-bad treat from Martin McDonagh, featuring one of Colin Farrell’s best performances yet as a guy trying (and failing) to deal with the fallout of a falling out.

Source: The Banshees Of Inisherin