Calvary (2014)
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
After being threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest must battle the dark forces closing in around him.
17 connections found
View:
17 films that influenced Calvary
What critics say influenced Calvary
McDonagh, inspired by Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest , blends the bitter melancholy of that film with themes that will resonate with especial force in McDonagh’s native Ireland.
In Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951), an obvious inspiration here, a rural community treats a young priest with disdain because he is young, effete and has a high-minded view of religion entirely out of keeping with the grind of their daily lives.
McDonagh himself has described his film as Robert Bresson’s “Diary of a Country Priest” “with a few gags thrown in.”
The picture is mostly structured as a series of snappy conversations Father James has with the members of his parish, who abide him with a bit more humor (but still much of the disdain) expressed by the parishioners in Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest .
Taking a conscious step away from the ironic frivolity of The Guard, McDonagh has mentioned Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest as an influence on Calvary .
In fact, McDonagh maintains a tone much more in keeping with Bresson’s “Diary of a Country Priest” or Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Léon Morin, Priest” than the churlish score-settling of “Philomena.”
Like Montgomery Clift in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess, James feels that the sanctity of the confessional prohibits him from revealing what he has been told.
What follows is an existential detective story of sorts, or perhaps an Agatha Christie whodunit by way of Hitchcock’s “I Confess,” in which the priest goes about his coastal village, tending to his flock while a seven-day clock ticks quietly away in the background.
It is said to be influenced firstly by a drunken conversation between Gleeson and McDonagh but also Hitchcock’s I Confess.
Gleeson is pitch perfect as Father James, as stoic as Gary Cooper in High Noon, so innately upstanding that his attendance on the day is never in doubt.
There are hints of High Noon, the classic Gary Cooper oater, in that dramatic scenario, especially considering the less-than-positive stance both films take on the virtue of small-town people.
At times, Gleeson’s character resembles Gary Cooper in High Noon: a man who refuses to turn his back on his town even though they have abandoned him.
Thus begins a sort of detective story, the kind you could imagine Robert Altman engaging with — something like his gumshoe ramble The Long Goodbye, say.
I thought a lot about Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye while watching this movie, and with that, a lot about detective movies in general.
Advertisement
These are not the jolly reprobates with charming brogues from The Quiet Man or the fabled soothsayers ready for another donnybrook Barry Fitzgerald used to play.
The expatriate American, de rigueur since John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952), is elderly novelist hermit Gerard Ryan (M.
We don’t see priests like this in the movies anymore (you might have to go back to Karl Malden in On The Waterfront for another example) as they’re so often paraded on-screen as punchlines either representing hypocrisy or serving as shorthand for pedophilia.
From his breakthrough starring role in John Boorman’s “The General” (1998), Gleeson has displayed a rare gift for conveying unsentimental warmth.
The film was shot by Larry Smith, cameraman on Stanley Kubrick 's dreamlike "Eyes Wide Shut" and more recently the garish, hypnotic "Only God Forgives," and so the images have a dynamic quality to match the forceful storytelling.
Advertisement
He makes an effort to discuss the threat with the town constable (Gary Lydon), but that worthy is entertaining the town’s resident rent boy (Owen Sharpe), who affects a hilariously awful dese-and-dose New York accent, apparently absorbed from repeated viewings of “West Side Story.”
A leather-clad gay hustler (Owen Sharpe) who seems to be doing a Noo Yawky imitation of every Jet in “West Side Story.”
Calvary devilishly satirizes all those charming Irish comedies of the 1990s (Waking Ned Devine, a prime example) that feature a rogue’s gallery of eccentric village characters pulling good-hearted tricks and romantic schemes, and where the parish priest is invariably a benign presence.