Man of Aran
- Colman 'Tiger' King: a man of Aran
- Maggie Dirrane: his wife
- Michael Dillane: their son
- Pat Mullin: shark hunter
- Patch 'Red Beard ' Ruadh: shark hunter
- Patcheen Flaherty: shark hunter
- Tommy O'Rourke: shark hunter
- 'Big Patcheen ' Conneely of the West: Canoeist
- Stephen Dirrane: Canoeist
- Pat McDonough: Canoeist
The men of Aran (Original Title: Man of Aran ) is a British documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty from 1934.
Action
On the small western Irish island group of the Aran Islands, a family lives of mother, father, son and toddler. The islands are rocky, without trees and without soil. Men rowing to fish in their Curragh at sea and have to fight in returning to the wild surf. The boat hits the rocks leak; with difficulty they can save their fishing net. Potato cultivation is possible on the island only by composting seaweed and collecting naturally formed the earth.
The boy is fishing off a high cliff down fish until he sees a basking shark and reports its appearance. Five men in a boat trying to catch the fish. This may initially escaped, leaving only a bent fishing hook. In a second experiment, they harpoon a fish from a group of basking sharks and subdue him after two days of fighting. All men rush with their boats on the sea and help to draw the animal on land where it is broken down right on the shore. Lamp oil is extracted from his liver.
The men rowed out again and expecting woman with her son on the stormy sea, looking her husband's return. Can be reached in the fight against the waves intact the coast, but the surf is so strong that the boat is pulled back into the sea. Along the coast, with the raging sea, the family home runs.
Background
After the failure of cooperation with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau taboo Flaherty went in 1931 to Berlin, where neither the hoped-for possibility of realization of a film in the Soviet Union even came about in Germany. After seven months, he traveled to London and turned there with limited financial resources, and John Grierson in the film department of the Empire Marketing Board the documentary Industrial Britain, who arrived only in 1933 to the performance.
At the same time he managed Flaherty on Grierson's mediation, Michael Balcon to inspire his idea of a film about the Aran Islands. End of October 1931 for the first time Flaherty visited briefly the Aran Islands and met the locals Pat Mullen know, who helped with his local knowledge and as a mediator to the islanders him. In January 1932 Flaherty arrived with his family and a cameraman to Inishmore and settled in the place Kilmurvy. For the interior shots he first had to reconstruct a small Irish house and he sought with Pat Mullen's support for suitable actors among the locals. The work on the Aran Islands for the film lasted a total of 20 months.
In the spring of 1932 Flaherty discovered a huge fish that swam through the water with its mouth open and the locals " sunfish " called. Through a friend Flaherty found out from a book from 1848 that it is basking sharks ( " basking -shark " ), which were then hunted for their liver to the entire Irish west coast for oil extraction. He was determined to integrate a spectacular Harpunierungsszene in his film. None of the men on Aran had ever used a harpoon, but Pat Mullen found out that 60 years ago harpoon hunt was still operated in this fish on the Aran Islands. Even before Flaherty performer had learned harpooning, but the season of basking sharks off the coast was over. Flaherty decided to stay on the island for its scene until the end of next summer. Over the winter storm turned Flaherty several scenes. By August 1933, the shark hunt was filmed.
In the winter of 1933/34, the film section in the Gainsborough Studios in Islington in collaboration of Studio Editor John Goldman with Robert Flaherty. Flaherty wrote the intertitles that were inserted against the resistance of the lender Gaumont - British in the film, even though they were already in force in 1934 as a relic of the last silent film era. In order to develop a soundtrack for the film, the actors were brought from the Aran Islands to London, where they stayed for nine weeks and recordings were made of them. John Greenwood wrote the score.
Man of Aran had on 25 April 1934 at the New Gallery Kinema London premiere. Contrary to the disclaimer of Film Distributors played the film, whose production had cost about £ 25,000, a £ 50,000 after six months. In the second film Festival in Venice in September 1934 he was named the best film of the Coppa Mussolini. The National Board of Review also honored him as best foreign language film of the year 1934.
The film brought the Aran Islands prominence and relative prosperity through an increased tourist interest.
On 25 May 2009 a new version of the film set to music in the form of DVD including soundtrack CD was released. The English band British Sea Power was made aware during a tour of the Republic of Ireland to the film. Among other things, at the Edinburgh Film Festival presented with live concerts film is now backed by experimental guitar pop. The inside cover of the published by Rough Trade Records soundtrack CD contains a quote from the British Sea Power guitarist Martin Noble: "We made this soundtrack Because We liked the romantic notion of people living on the edge of existence It's something I'd. like to think I could do, but know I never will. " In the official UK sales charts for the soundtrack CD reached number 68
Criticism
Some contemporary critics in Britain complained that the alleged documentary reflects anything other than an authentic image. Iris Barry made in her book Let's Go to the Pictures ( 1926) this accusation already Flaherty's Nanook of the North. Caroline Lejeune wrote in The Observer: Man of Aran have no history, it hardly tell the daily activities of its nameless protagonist after.
For the British filmmaker Ralph Bond (1904-1989) are two towers and a shark hunt any movie. Flaherty Escapism show the fact that the film raises questions only after the actual life on Aran not showing the director, and he therefore could not be called a documentary.
In his essay subjects and Stories (1938 ) Graham Greene noted the irrelevance of the beautiful shots. Man of Aran will not even try to describe the life truthfully; the inhabitants had to learn the shark hunting to serve Flaherty with a dramatic movie.
John Grierson elaborated on these criticisms and defended Flaherty's film with a reference to the circumstances of the commercial film industry.