Ryan's daughter

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Movie
German title Ryan's daughter
Original title Ryan's daughter
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1970
length 189 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director David Lean
script Robert Bolt
production Anthony Havelock-Allan
music Maurice Jarre
camera Freddie Young
cut Norman Savage
occupation

Ryan's Daughter is a film melodrama directed by David Lean , filmed in 1969 on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland . The film is a loose adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's “ Madame Bovary ” and tells the story of Rosy Ryan from the (fictional) village of Kirrary in the south-west of Ireland against the background of the Irish uprising of 1916 ( Easter Rising ).

After The Bridge on the Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago , Ryan's daughter was David Lean's fourth epic. The film received a lot of negative reviews, but ended up winning two Academy Awards . According to certain sources, it is said to have been the negative reactions that prompted Lean not to make a film for fourteen years (up to the trip to India ). Today critics speak of an overlooked masterpiece.

action

Rosy, the daughter of bar host Thomas Ryan, is in love with her former teacher, Charles Shaughnessy, a widower. She considers Charles, a Beethoven admirer who has returned from rebellious Dublin, to be important and hopes that he will free herself from the intellectual confines of the village of Kirrary, where unemployment and poverty prevail. Charles is drawn by the admiration of the young woman, but warns her against overstrained expectations. They get married anyway. The honest man disappoints Rosy. His affection and reliability do not outweigh their desire for great love.

Two events change the couple's life: the arrival of Tim O'Leary, an officer in the Irish underground, and the Randolph Doryans, the new commander of the British garrison. O'Leary secretly visits the area (he kills a police officer who recognized him) to receive a delivery of weapons from the Germans (the weapons are to be landed on a remote stretch of coast). Major Doryan suffers from a war trauma. He's coming from the front in France to take a rest in the apparently quiet south-west of Ireland. Rosy meets him at her father's pub. Randolph's melancholy, neediness and dreamy absence inflame Rosy. They fall in love.

Thomas Ryan prides himself on his relationship with the underground and with O'Leary, who takes him at his word and calls on him to help the insurgents recover the German arms shipment from the sea; this threatens to drown in a storm. Before he cuts the telephone connection to the English garrison on orders, Ryan reveals to the English as a paid informant the presence of the insurgents in the village. The occupation soldiers prevent the smuggled weapons from being transported away. O'Leary tries to escape, but is shot and arrested by Randolph.

Most villagers suspect that the recovery of the war material, which includes rifles, ammunition, hand grenades and dynamite, was betrayed and suspect his daughter, not Thomas Ryan, because word has gotten around that she has a relationship with Randolph. Charles also realizes that his wife is cheating on him with Randolph. He leaves his house to ponder the consequences in seclusion. Pastor Collins looks for and finds him by the sea.

Meanwhile the anger of the village is directed against the alleged traitor. An angry crowd abuses Rosy. Charles is forcibly prevented from standing by his wife. Your father is afraid to confess to the betrayal. Collins' intervention prevents worse.

Randolph knows that his behavior has ruined the social position of his loved one. Feelings of guilt, nervous disruption, the aversion of the village and perhaps his doubts about the meaning of the occupation regime drive him to suicide; he kills himself with the smuggled dynamite that Collins' protégé Michael showed him.

Rosy and Charles leave the village, haunted by the malice and hatred of its residents. Only Collins and Michael accompany them to the bus stop. Collins suspects that the couple in Dublin are about to split up, and as a parting gift, gives Charles doubts as to whether the separation from Rosy is best for both of them.

Reviews

“Oversized, optically and acoustically complex film in the Schiwago style. Successful in the first part, sliding down to colportage and kitsch in the second . "

- film watchers

“A monumental melodrama (...) with which David Lean attempted to tie in with the broad epic - and the success - of ' Doctor Schiwago '. Great landscape shots and the technical sovereignty of the director do not always hide the trivial features of the story. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Excellent pictures. A smug and boring movie and a huge disappointment from a great director. Mitchum looks like he's thinking about everything, just not about the film. "

- The Motion Picture Guide

"" Director Lean (...) tells this opulently, visually and acoustically impressive, but too bombastic and in the last part also kitschy (...). "Rating: 2½ stars = above average"

- Adolf Heinzlmeier , Berndt Schulz

"It's like going to great ceremony by a silent servant crowd on a huge silver tray, a white bread served [...] But a Mettbrötchen now remains times a Mettbrötchen, is no tricks to a fillet à la Jardinière. This leaves embarrassing efforts and the desire to spend a holiday in Ireland. "

- Hans-Peter Kochrath

"Not a masterpiece, but 'Ryan's daughter,' to put it bluntly, doesn't deserve the ridicule that is poured out on her, neither Rosy Ryan in the narrative nor the film itself. Though it has breaks, and especially around half an hour Should be cut (at least), 'Ryan's Daughter' remains a great original cinema event and an outstanding example of the work of great talent near the peak of their potential. But what is really important is that this film was conceived, shot and shown in 70 mm. "

- Anthony Sloman

"Excellent staged and photographed meta-melodrama"

- Lothar R. Just

Awards

Soundtrack

  • Maurice Jarre : Ryan's Daughter. Original motion picture soundtrack . On the reverse: Doctor Zhivago & Ryan's Daughter. Original MGM soundtrack recordings . EMI 1989, sound carrier no. CDP 7932982 - Original recording of the film music conducted by the composer

DVD release

  • Ryan's daughter. Special edition . 2 DVD set. Warner Home Video 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lexicon of international film (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
  2. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier , Berndt Schulz : Lexicon "Films on TV". Extended new edition. Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 695
  3. ^ Hans-Peter Cookingrath in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , No. 295, 1970
  4. ↑ The British filmmaker and film historian Anthony Sloman in: The 70mm Newsletter ; September 1998
  5. ^ Lothar R. Just (ed.): Heyne Filmlexikon; 1996