The Early Films of Thaddeus O’Sullivan – ‘Assembled Memories: Jack B. Yeats 1871 – 1957’
A Focus On The Early Films of Ireland’s Great Director, Thaddeus O’Sullivan
The ICC is delighted to present a season of films by one of Ireland’s foremost film directors and cinematographers, Thaddeus O’Sullivan. A muti-award winning Director, (an Emmy and Bafta Nominee), Thaddeus is currently considered to be one of the leading Directors in the UK.
Thaddeus has been a working filmmaker for five decades. Throughout the 1980s, he was a central figure in the first wave of Irish feature-film-making, as cinematographer on films such as Joe Comerford’s ‘Traveller’, Pat Murphy’s ‘Anne Devlin’ and Cathal Black’s ‘Pigs’ and he was an early lobbyist for the development of an indigenous Irish cinema.
In this short season focussing on O’Sullivan’s early works, the ICC will be screening O’Sullivan’s drama-documentary, ‘On a Paving Stone Mounted’ (Sat July 2nd 7pm): His short film ‘A Pint of Plain’ plus his first drama ‘The Woman Who Married Clark Gable’ (Sun July 3rd 3pm): and his multi award winning feature film ‘December Bride’ (Sun July 3rd 7pm).
Thaddeus O’Sullivan will do Q&A’s after each of the film screenings; he will be interviewed by Gerry Maguire from ‘Irish Film London’.
6:00pm
Tickets: £5
About Assembled Memories: Jack B. Yeats 1871 – 1957
Rarely screened since the early 1980s, this under-discussed film offers a visual biographical essay on one of Ireland’s leading painters of the twentieth century.
Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s subject was a London-born Irish artist whose creative and personal journey mirrors that of the filmmaker. Yeats trained at art school in west London, and his early career was as an illustrator for a number of London newspapers. His painting developed through specific stages, from figurative landscapes/scenes to more abstract work.
Researched and written by O’Sullivan, the film skilfully combined a number of different creative treatments to bring the director’s subject alive on screen. Its effect is to produce an engaging audio-visual montage, through which is woven a twin-narration of voice-over tracks. The film is an auto/biographical visual essay that expresses Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s understanding of Yeats’ views on the nature of art and creativity. The central notion here, providing O’Sullivan’s film with its title, is the relationship between art and memory, for Yeats claims that “no one creates … the artist assembles memories”. Notes by Lance Pettit.
This Film on Ireland’s great artist Jack B. Yeats, (brother of the Poet W.B Yeats), features extraordinary old black and white footage. The film is narrated by Irish actor Bosco Hogan and has a wonderful musical score.
