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When
framing the skyline of Derry, the camera never shows
the waterfront. While changes Foyleside in new shopping
centres and roadways indicate for us today the city’s
determination to look like any other industrial city
of the British north (as its chainstores signify),
such symbols jar the traditional iconography of the
unbreached Maiden City.
The
siege this time, January 30th 1972, as shown through
Ivan Strasburg’s camera, gives no sign of the
sunny day that actually brightened the NICRA marchers.
Rather,
muted earth and olive tones dominate not only the
previous night but the next day. Filming in a style
eerily mimicking the newsreels of the early ‘70s,
the events unspool as if we are watching Pontecorvo’s
The Battle of Algiers. Yet Paul Greengrass
dispenses with voiceover, title cards, or all but
a rudimentary pair of narratives. The simplicity of
the production allows the viewer to confront the events
in all their mundanity. Too often, heroicising makes
martyrs of the ordinary folks. We lose our ability
to place them within our situation. Celebrity status
usually uneases our average Joe or Seamus. Before
they became Warholian images, a chanted litany, the
13 (later 14) marchers were pretty much indistinguishable
from you and me. This film does not offer backstories
for the dozen dead, only one young man among the 17-year-olds
killed.
This
documentary approach, I believe, presents the events
familiar to readers of The Blanket shorn of
dramatic speeches, with no impassioned stories of
“how our hero learned that discrimination is
wrong as a six-year-old lad” or “why I insist
that our love can overcome sectarian barriers.”
No violin crescendos or gospel choirs. No histrionic
newscasters. And no soft-focus flashbacks or tin-whistled
montages. Only reels of film, snatched out of cameras
and stitched back into ragged patterns. Focusing upon
Ivan Cooper’s role, the script thankfully resists
preaching - the short speech that Cooper does offer,
as the marchers are being shot at behind the peaceful
assembly in front of Free Derry Corner summarises
in a minute or so the whole collapse of the non-violent
approach. James Nesbitt’s command of the role
captures succinctly the idealism and the fury of a
Protestant MP struggling to redress wrongs. Yet he’s
tempted, in rare moments of reflection, to simply
drop all of this and walk away. But he can’t.
Those people keep collaring his every move, the camera
constantly jangles, the phone never stops ringing:
he, like all that day, runs after the action. By the
time Cooper slows down, he’s again hugging his
constituents, only now in the waiting room of the
hospital.
As
Bloody Sunday conveys the day, it’s beyond
control of the Paras, the Provos, the marchers, the
stewards. Imagery, more than speeches, presents the
jumble to us shorn of easy soundbites. No character
emerges as the easy hero. While the character of Bernadette
Devlin is the last word (unless you count that inevitable
U2 song over the closing credits), her call for justice
resounds more as a threat than an ideal. Ivan Cooper,
crushed, now departs the scene, leaving the NICRA
press conference and the waiting media in the hands
of those no longer willing to sing “We Shall
Overcome.” The guns are handed out that night
to a queue of new volunteers who will no longer run
away from the tear gas and the bullets, rubber or
otherwise.
Often
in the film, for both the British and the Irish, words
are cut, mikes out of range, blackouts cut into the
clips. A casual viewer, or someone less able to pick
up on a lot of muttering in various accents, cannot
parse what is said on screen. The Army’s maps
help, as those viewers not familiar with Derry’s
Bogside would be otherwise as lost as some of those
on the ground that afternoon in trying to track the
route taken and the detours forced that afternoon.
We must allow the camera to interpret more than our
ear. We see through the camera as if we are there,
but we are not. History distances us. Even Ballymun
had to stand in for Derry. No more do Rossville Street’s
flats loom large.
Whether
the military, the Provos, or the marchers, the control
of the events is simply beyond any one faction. Only
the cameras witness the commotion, and the editors
- whether Lords Widgery or Saville, Don Mullan’s
and Dermot Walsh’s books, Trisha Ziff’s
museum installations and now Paul Greengrass’
film - survive to record what soldiers, journalists,
militants, and ordinary folks saw that day and night.
Along with the recent Irish film of the hunger strikers,
H3, Bloody Sunday
deserves respect for serving as a comprehensive look
at the republican movement from the perspectives of
onlookers, volunteers, and its opponents alike.
P.S.
Watch for the curly-topped and muttonchopped Martin
McGuinness lookalike loitering in the car before the
march begins. On the other hand, the Eamonn McCann
actor is named as such - if only halfway through the
film, it seems - and coiffured in equally accurate
style for those of us old enough to have endured the
decade firsthand. Since the ‘70s are back in
fashion, perhaps an added incentive for younger viewers?
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