Letters to the Editor: 11.07.96
What's In My Head
Westchester
November 4, 1996
Dear Editor,
I'm sure your readers have had enough of the windy debate on my film, "Some Mother's Son." Can I put this thing to bed, at least until the film's release in December when I hope your audience will go and see the film and judge for itself?
Having first of all written a commentary on my film without having seen it, Simon Worrall, when he had corrected that error and watched the film, has now set out in his letter to tell people that despite what they might see on the screen he, Simon Worrall, really knows what's in my head.
You'd think that Mr. Worrall, journalist that he is, might get on the phone and ask me what's in my head, but no, we get yet another long-winded annunciation of Mr. Worrall's fears couched as reporting. Also having in his first article shamefully compared Fionnula Flanagan to Goebbels, he now compares me and Jim Sheridan (a director who has earned 12 Academy Award nominations) to Leni Riefenstahl.
And, as he reports on a lecture he didn't bother to attend, he gets his facts wrong again! I never said the dance scene was my favorite scene. In fact, it's not.
I said it was the most complex scene and the one I thought most about because I was acutely aware of the power of glorification that the combination of music and violence has in cinema and video today, but that I wanted to use that power as it is used in Ireland and Britain with rebel tunes and jingoist band marches.
I was also anxious to show the proximity of the violence to the civilian population, namely the girl's school.
Lastly, Mr. Worrall has been most anxious to acquaint your readers to what I was doing 21 years ago. He says I've been trying to hide my arrest and conviction when in fact I think that for the last three months I've talked about little else. I would refer him to the text of my op-ed piece in The New York Times where I state my political beliefs clearly.
Can I state for the record that I find myself mostly in agreement with your extremely long-range reader, the former British soldier from Southampton, England. (Is The Star on the Internet or did someone mail him the text of this momentous debate?) The need in Northern Ireland is for peace.
I disagree with the soldier in that I think Gerry Adams is one of the major forces for peace. And I disagree wholeheartedly with Simon Worrall, in that I, the creator of "Some Mother's Son," think the film is also a force for peace. It's a film about one woman's humanism and how she is forced to make the most heartwrenching decision of her life.
What I found most amusing about Mr. Worrall's letter was how remarkably similar in tone and supposition he sounded to the criticisms of the film leveled by several members of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, who also tried to get inside my head, and declared that I had used the film to paper over the prisoner's righteous struggle in favor of the story of one middle-class mother.
I wish these invaders of my head space would be so good as to tell me whether they happened to come across the content and details of my next film while they were in my head. It would save me many tortuous hours at this keyboard.
Sincerely,
TERRY GEORGE
Director, "Some Mother's Son"
Yes, we are on the Internet. Ed.
Fondness For Rebels
Wainscott
November 4, 1996
To The Editor:
By means of his flawed and slanted review of the movie "Some Mother's Son," Simon Worrall has called attention to the centuries-old struggle of the Irish people for freedom from British rule. For that he deserves thanks.
In the Irish rebellions of 1798 and 1848, most of the leaders not killed were captured and imprisoned. Described by their English captors as traitors and bloodthirsty villains, they were transported or otherwise forced to leave their country for France, Australia, Canada, and America.
In their new homelands, these men rose to the highest levels, becoming state and provincial governors, military officers of high rank, educators, attorneys, and members of their national parliaments. One of them, Charles Duffy, became Prime Minister of Australia.
While these men were engaged in notable achievements, many of those who called them bloodthirsty villains were still in Ireland maiming and killing helpless Irish peasants. Some of those peasants, in their desperate yearning for freedom, charged the mouths of cannons with nothing but pitchforks in their hands.
Mr. Worrall just doesn't get it. We Americans have a fondness for rebels, particularly rebels aiming to throw off the yoke of British rule. Had the American Revolution failed, those leaders, described as rebels at the time, would have been tried as traitors. Mr. Worrall may see them as traitors, but I don't.
Colonialism is dead. It died a long time ago, and Great Britain is the only nation left on earth not to realize it.
HENRY CLIFFORD
A Colorful Lot
Calexico, Calif.
October 31, 1996
Dear Star,
I am writing from San Felipe in Baja California, Mexico, quite by accident. My Spanish did not include "proposed highway" on the map, so, thinking I was on a carretera to Bahia di Los Angeles and Mulege, I discovered, upon arrival, that the passable highway ends here. And just as well - San Felipe is the most charming place. I really have no desire to go farther south.
I am the only motor home in a tiny park. The sun comes up very quickly over the Gulf right in my back window. The showers are not hot but not cold either. The beach is two minutes' walk down an escalera which is simply rocks that keep you from falling about 40 feet to the bottom.
The water is delicious for swimming - very salty - the sun strong. The walk to town and anything I would need is easy and very colorful. This is a shrimping port, and the draggers remind me of home.
Martin and Claudia, who run the place, have been above and beyond in showing me how to use the phone, what the different monedas are, etc., etc. I will be leaving here tomorrow to go down the road a bit to Campo Marco, another tiny recreational vehicle park not nearly as nice as this but one-third the cost.
I have signed on there until the first of the year and then vamos a ver. The people I have met so far are a colorful lot. A heavily bearded and heavily scarred gringo called Satch ritually shows videos of his rotator cuff surgery every Sunday to anyone whom he can get to watch.
He plans to make a Super Bowl out of his knee surgery, which took much longer.
Another gringo has, alongside his trailer, a vintage Mercedes Benz convertible with a hood strap and all-gleaming immaculate white, which, it is rumored, he drives around San Felipe when the mood strikes him, hoping to entice a senorita or two.
I finally got myself a Post Office box so the mail will only take 10 days instead of at least two weeks. I would love to hear from one and all at P.O. Box 952, SF 143, Calexico, Calif. 92231.
Happy Halloween or Luna de Lucifer.
Love,
JUDY HUBBARD