John Crowley
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Now, Voyager: John Crowley’s Brooklyn
“Sometimes it’s nice to be in a place where everybody doesn’t know your auntie,” her heavily made up, peroxided cabin mate tells unadorned Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) on the latter’s maiden crossing from Ireland to the US. It is 1952. Eilis is headed to Brooklyn, home to thousands of Irish immigrants. Having made the trip before (and hardly a maiden), the brassy young woman offers advice on comportment at immigration to avoid quarantine and other hazards. She proceeds to decorate the face of the pasty girl, a withdrawn naif who insists on not ending up resembling a trollop. “Looking like a […]
by Howard Feinstein on Nov 4, 2015 -
Festen: The New York Film Festival 2015
For the first time in recent memory, it’s extremely difficult to select the top of the crop at this 53rd edition of the New York Film Festival (September 26-October 11), a question of too many contenders. I am not taking into consideration the tentpole films that anchor the festival, or any big studio movies, like Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. That’s another kettle of fish. Down below I list what I consider the crème de la crème (appropriate phrase, considering the usual Gallic slant) and review those titles briefly. Since they will all have commercial runs, I’ll be reviewing at length […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 25, 2015 -
Recreating ’50s NYC in Montreal: Director John Crowley on Brooklyn at TIFF 2015
Just like Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel, which revolves around Eilis Lacey having to cope with the changes caused by her immigration from Ireland to America during the 1950s, the cinematic adaptation of Brooklyn encountered some alterations over the course of its development. Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) was to play the lead female protagonist but delays in the production required a new actress to be cast (Saoirse Ronan) and a non-Irish filmmaker was sought for the project that ended up being directed by John Crowley, a native of Cork, Ireland. While attending the Toronto International Film Festival, Crowley shared […]
by Trevor Hogg on Sep 17, 2015 -
“The Film Just Won’t Be Good Enough”: Brooklyn | Director John Crowley
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? At first the familiar gnawing fear that the film just won’t be good enough. But nothing ever is, so I negotiated my way past that one. But then arose a far more specific concern in this instance – that the finished film would not do justice to the experiences of the countless thousands of emigrants that crossed the Atlantic to find a new life in the US. Brooklyn is […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 29, 2015 -
John Crowley, Is Anybody There?
MICHAEL CAINE AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR JOHN CROWLEY’S IS ANYBODY THERE? COURTESY STORY ISLAND ENTERTAINMENT. Along with Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, John Crowley is part of a recent wave of Irish theater influx into film. Born in 1969, Crowley is a philosophy graduate from the University of Cork in Ireland who first became involved in theater as a student, seeing it as a way to get into directing film. He began directing plays in Dublin in the early 90s and was successful enough that already in 1996 he was working in London’s West End. After a few years, […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 17, 2009
