NEIL JORDAN'S eagerly awaited film, Michael Collins, was enthusiastically received at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. Initial screenings prompted sustained applause from international cinema critics, and the film's major stars, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Aidan Quinn, as well as director Jordan himself, were all warmly applauded when they arrived for their post screening press conference at the Venice Lido.
The festival grapevine is already suggesting the Jordan film is in line for one of the prestigious Venice awards. A straw poll conducted by The Irish Times among Argentine, English, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish colleagues was unanimous in concluding that Jordan's portrayal of Collins's life and death was the best thing seen so far in Venice.
Inevitably, some critics had reservations. The news conference opened with the man from the London Daily Mail asking Jordan about possible problems when the film is seen by British and Irish audiences.
Jordan said: "There's been a huge amount of comment in the British and Irish press about the movie before anybody had seen it, but those people who made adverse comments about it and who have since seen the film have changed their opinions."
Jordan also rejected the suggestion of the Daily Express critic that the film would "rattle the collection tins for the IRA in the USA". He said the American audience was less naive than the question implied and defended the film's historical authenticity: "I think it is as accurate as an historical movie can be. I would challenge anybody to make a movie that is more accurate.
Inevitably, any film which portrays the central role played by Michael Collins in the War of Independence, as well as his signing of the Treaty and his relationships with de Valera and Harry Boland, will not satisfy everyone. From the Irish viewpoint, perhaps nothing will prove more controversial than the film's central thesis that de Valera had, at the very least, a major political responsibility for the death of Collins. Jordan said: "The only thing I've said in the movie is that Michael Collins was shot on his way to a meeting, while attempting a meeting with de Valera. That is true. I don't say that de Valera arranged his assassination.
"There is a suggestion of that perhaps, but deValera was in that Cork valley where Collins was shot on the day he was shot and Collins was attempting a meeting with the Republican leadership of which de Valera was part."
He added: "To a large extent, the movie is an argument between Irish people, between Irish people who wanted the Empire to continue and Irish people who didn't want it to continue ... The movie is also an argument between the revolutionary and the politician, between Collins and de Valera, between a passionate kind of heart and a strategic or dispassionate mentality."
Initial comment in yesterday's Italian papers confirmed that Michael Collins has been well received by cinema critics.