What do you think?
Rate this book
The Butcher Boy
* Lucid and accessible style makes the series appealing to the general reader
* Liberally illustrated throughout with stills from the film under discussion
* Collaboration between Cork University Press and the Film Institute of Ireland.
"The Butcher Boy" is perhaps the finest film to have come out of Ireland. Although it breaks clearly with the banal canons of realism, it is nonetheless the most realistic of Irish films. It engages with the society and culture of modern Ireland with a wit and ferocity that denies the viewer any easy moral position. Cinema is often thought of as a purely visual art, but this film is adapted from a groundbreaking novel by a filmmaker who is himself a writer of prose fiction. In this present study, Colin MacCabe examines the process by which fiction becomes film, and writing becomes image. The book places "The Butcher Boy" in the overall context of Neil Jordan's career, and analyzes the trajectory between his international and national films.
* Liberally illustrated throughout with stills from the film under discussion
* Collaboration between Cork University Press and the Film Institute of Ireland.
"The Butcher Boy" is perhaps the finest film to have come out of Ireland. Although it breaks clearly with the banal canons of realism, it is nonetheless the most realistic of Irish films. It engages with the society and culture of modern Ireland with a wit and ferocity that denies the viewer any easy moral position. Cinema is often thought of as a purely visual art, but this film is adapted from a groundbreaking novel by a filmmaker who is himself a writer of prose fiction. In this present study, Colin MacCabe examines the process by which fiction becomes film, and writing becomes image. The book places "The Butcher Boy" in the overall context of Neil Jordan's career, and analyzes the trajectory between his international and national films.
- GenresIrish Literature
96 pages, Paperback
First published June 16, 2006
13 people want to read
About the author
Colin MacCabe
42 books13 followersColin MacCabe is an English academic, writer and film producer. He has published books on a variety of subjects, including Jean Luc Godard, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot, and has produced many films, among them Young Soul Rebels, Seasons in Quincy, and Caravaggio. He is currently distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh.
MacCabe became involved in Screen, a journal of film theory published by SEFT (Society for Education in Film and Television) becoming a member of its board in 1973–78 and contributing essays such as "Realism and Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses" (1974). This was a period that critic Robin Wood described as the "felt moment of Screen" – the time when critical theories emanating from Paris in the late 1960s began to intervene in Anglophone film culture. By releasing the energy and intellectual debate associated with a major paradigm shift, Screen posed a "formidable and sustained challenge to traditional aesthetics" and academia.
MacCabe came to public prominence in 1981 when he was denied tenure at Cambridge University as a consequence of his position at the centre of a much publicised dispute within the faculty of English concerning the teaching of structuralism. His account of events was published three decades later in "A Tale of Two Theories".
After leaving Cambridge he took up a professorship of English at the University of Strathclyde (1981–85), where he was Head of Department and introduced graduate programmes, developing it as a centre for literary linguistics. After over a decade, in which he combined his positions at the British Film Institute with a one-semester appointment at the University of Pittsburgh, he took up a fractional professorship at the University of Exeter (1998–2006), and then at Birkbeck, University of London (1992–2006). He is currently visiting Professor of English at University College, London and at the Birkbeck Institute. In 2011 he taught for a semester in the Department of Cultural Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad. He was a visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in the Michaelmas term of 2014. Since 1986 he has remained a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
MacCabe became involved in Screen, a journal of film theory published by SEFT (Society for Education in Film and Television) becoming a member of its board in 1973–78 and contributing essays such as "Realism and Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses" (1974). This was a period that critic Robin Wood described as the "felt moment of Screen" – the time when critical theories emanating from Paris in the late 1960s began to intervene in Anglophone film culture. By releasing the energy and intellectual debate associated with a major paradigm shift, Screen posed a "formidable and sustained challenge to traditional aesthetics" and academia.
MacCabe came to public prominence in 1981 when he was denied tenure at Cambridge University as a consequence of his position at the centre of a much publicised dispute within the faculty of English concerning the teaching of structuralism. His account of events was published three decades later in "A Tale of Two Theories".
After leaving Cambridge he took up a professorship of English at the University of Strathclyde (1981–85), where he was Head of Department and introduced graduate programmes, developing it as a centre for literary linguistics. After over a decade, in which he combined his positions at the British Film Institute with a one-semester appointment at the University of Pittsburgh, he took up a fractional professorship at the University of Exeter (1998–2006), and then at Birkbeck, University of London (1992–2006). He is currently visiting Professor of English at University College, London and at the Birkbeck Institute. In 2011 he taught for a semester in the Department of Cultural Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad. He was a visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford in the Michaelmas term of 2014. Since 1986 he has remained a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
