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WB Yeats – No Country for Old Men 1 x 52’ Edna O’Brien; Life, Stories 1 x 52’
This documentary by award-winning director Maurice Sweeney concentrates
on the later work of the great poet and the themes that inspired him as an
ageing man.
In Ireland, Yeats is rightly regarded as the poet laureate of the new nation. In
Britain he is regarded as a romantic, Irish dreamer. But the reality of his life
and work after Ireland had won independence was a good deal earthier, and
a good deal more interesting.
In looking at Yeats’ later life and work, the film reveals a very different Yeats
to the poet we learnt about in school.
A Hot Shot Films Production for RTÉ
Now in her eighty-second year and in advance of publishing her memoirs,
Edna O’Brien opened her home and her heart to documentary filmmakers
for this intimate portrait of her. The resulting film gives unprecedented
insight, encompassing the sweep of a long career, into one of the great
survivors in Irish literature.
O’Brien’s journey from the west of Ireland to the centre of literary life in
London has involved rebellion, censorship, elopement, motherhood, divorce,
custody battles and the rearing of two sons as a single mother as well
as a glittering social life and a growing profile as a public personality and
commentator.
But throughout most of these dramatic developments, O’Brien wrote
consistently to produce an impressive and unique body of work earning her
status as the doyenne of Irish letters. In this film, we are given a privileged
glimpse of O’Brien’s more private life, her writing process and rituals.
An Ice Box Films Production for RTÉ
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