Neil Jordan in Bantry on the Catholic Church, and the talents of Daniel Day-Lewis
Neil Jordan with interviewer Cristín Leach in Bantry at the West Cork Literary Festival. Picture: Karlis Dzjamko
It seems fair to observe that Neil Jordan is not the most voluble of interviewees. He has always seemed more comfortable with the written word, unless it is to put his words in other characters’ mouths, as he has done in 20 feature films over the past four decades.
Jordan’s fame as a film director has often eclipsed his literary achievements, but his recent memoir, focuses more on his background and his books than on his days in Hollywood. Born in Sligo in 1950, he grew up in Dublin and published his first collection of short stories, at 26. He has since produced nine novels.
Art critic and broadcaster Cristín Leach has the task of interviewing Jordan at West Cork Literary Festival. She does so with great skill, teasing out the recollections he has put to paper in Amnesia, and rounding out our understanding of the man.
Jordan’s mother Angela was a painter, and he admits this was an early influence on his creativity. He recalls sitting at a gate on Rosses Point in Co Sligo, looking out on Coney Island, as a child, but admits that this might not be a real memory, but one based on a series of paintings his mother made of that particular scene.
Jordan recalls of the Ireland of his childhood that “logic didn’t seem to apply, and it probably came from the Catholic Church." If you said three prayers in a particular church, you released a soul from purgatory. "People really believed in these irrational, impossible things,” Jordan stated.
With the legendary director John Boorman’s support, he made his first film, in 1982. It gave him a springboard to the film industry in the UK, where he got to make experimental films such as and These in turn saw him welcomed in Hollywood.
Jordan speaks admiringly of both Stephen Rea, who has starred in several of his films, and Tom Cruise, who starred in his greatest success, He recalls how Daniel Day-Lewis, who takes method acting to the extreme, was suggested for Cruise’s role in the latter. “But he would have spent six months in a coffin,” he laughs.
He laments how Hollywood no longer supports small, independent films, preferring instead to put all its weight behind blockbuster movies, and doubts that anyone today could follow a career path as varied and idiosyncratic as his has been.
At 75, Jordan is still full of plans. There’s a sci-fi novel in the works, and a raft of film projects he still hopes to bring to fruition. He is also considering a second memoir, one that might focus more on his time in Hollywood.
He admits that his entire career as a writer and filmmaker has been an act of self-exploration. “I think life is deeper and more variegated than we can ever imagine,” he says, “it's more profound than we've ever given credit for, and I think there are parts to ourselves that we never fully understand, you know?”
